Jamon Jamon (1992)

Review Salted pork shanks as leitmotiv in Jamón Jamón a dark comedy about an absurd love triangle: this is what post-Franco cine is all about (food and sex). Spanish tortillas (i.e., potato omelets) are also big in this one. Director José Juan Bigas Luna is intelligent, wry, and--despite the formulaic narrative that melodrama must essentially contain--unpredictable. At times his film exudes a certain Almodóvar flavour, but there is an edge, perhaps even heavy-handedness, to the dark humour that is either Luna's success or his downfall. The film garnered the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival, after all. Try to follow: sexy Penelope Cruz (Belle Epoque) is growing up with her mother outside town on the wrong side of the highway. Together they run a truck stop where cars and life literally race past. Cruz is in love with Jordí Molla, by whom she is pregnant, but Molla's bourgeois mother, played by Anna Galiena (Being Human), thinks he can and should do better (of course, neither Cruz nor his mother knows of the erotic, avian interludes Molla enjoys on the side.) To save her son from the lower classes, Galiena hires Javier Bardem, a muscular, pretty man (whose regular consumption of the pork he distributes for a living has enhanced his sexual appeal) to pursue Cruz. The dark comedy finds a proper ending to the triangle in a grotesque but comedic landscape of death. This is not a cookie-cutter movie but rather one that will resonate with both your light and dark sides. After each surprise, you'll chuckle, feel guilty, and chuckle again. --Erik Macki, Amazon.com Product Description

A Very Dark but Enormously Successful Unique Film

'Jamón, jamón' is a tremendously creative movie by director José Juan Bigas Luna and his writing partner Cuca Canals (Son de mar, Volavérunt, Bámbola, Lumière et compagnie, La Teta y la luna, and Huevos de oro), a film that is a dark comedy but not in the ho-ho manner: the comedy is the human comedy and watching it evolve may at times make the viewer avert the eyes because of its truthfulness.

Silvia (a very young Penélope Cruz) lives with her prostitute mother (Stefania Sandrelli) in a truck stop bordello, obviously in the lower caste of society. Silvia works in the Under Wear factory owned by the parents (Anna Galiena and Juan Diego) of Penelope's boyfriend José Luis (Jordi Molla). Penelope is pregnant by José Luis but of course this low class association will never do to his mother so she sets about to distract Silvia from José Luis's attentions. Enter a ham seller and wannabe bullfighter Raúl (the very buff and hunky young Javier Bardem) who is a macho as they come (a night scene where Raúl and his handsome friend played by Tomás Martín fight a bull in the nude is the pinnacle of machismo!) whom the mother hires to distract Silvia. But the plot thickens when the intended coupling becomes crazily rearranged (Raúl has sex with José Luis's mother, José Luis seeks out the corporal companionship of Silvia's prostitute mother, José Luis's father grasps for Silvia, etc) until the sextet comes to a strange ending on the twilight plains of Spain.

This color-saturated movie by cinematographer José Luis Alcaine is a visual delight and the accompanying musical score by Nicola Piovani adds just the right amount of spice. But it is the extraordinary acting of the young actors who were to become international stars - Penélope Cruz, Javier Bardem, and Jordi Mollà - that bring the excitement and aura of sensuality to this very controversial film. José Juan Bigas Luna is a terrific combination of Dalí, Almodóvar, Cocteau, and Buñuel, but he carries his dark comedic sense into the critical eye of the human microscope. The film is a delight and a joy to see, if only to watch the three big names at their early stages! Grady Harp, November 06


November 6, 2006

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