What's Franco got to do with it? Spanish cinema of the late 70s and early 80s appealed to the Francoist dictatorship so often that it sometimes seems that there were no other topics for filmmakers from the Pyrenees at all. Of course, the reign of the Caudillo left a huge mark on the hearts and souls of the Spaniards, but the frustration of their creative intelligentsia is perhaps difficult to compare even with the one that swept their colleagues from 1/6 of the land after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Almost every prominent Spanish director considered it his duty to turn to his recent history, and Vicente Aranda, of course, could not stay away from this trend.
His adaptation of Juan Marse’s popular novel “The Girl in Golden Knickers” in the Pyrenees is devoted to that deep frustration. The complete disappointment that gripped those who until recently believed in the special path of the country’s development, who devoted their lives to ideas cruelly debunked by the new generation, and to whom this new generation seemed alien, unbridled and dangerous.
Famous writer and phalanx activist Luis Forest moves away from the world after Franco's death, locking himself in his country villa to rethink his life, write memoirs and try to understand what happened to him and the country. But in the bucolic privacy brazenly and shamelessly invades his niece Mariana, the daughter of the sister of his ex-wife Louis, who came to his uncle under the pretext of an interview for a magazine in which she ascetics as a reporter. In addition, the girl brought with her a photographer, a creature of the indeterminate sex named Elmir, personifying everything that Louis hated in his past life.
The phenomenon of a turbulent, unbridled, openly sexual Mariana finally violates the peace in the soul of Louis, and his frustration is replaced by a deep depression. His memory, flashing flashbacks in his mind, insists: “Life was in vain, you only made a mistake, nothing can be corrected.” And before my eyes – bright, restless, provocatively sexy Victoria Abril... that is, sorry – Mariana, who may well be his daughter. Probably even his daughter. But instead of fatherly feelings, the hero experiences irritation mixed with sexual desire.
In general, the reservation about Victoria Abril is not even a reservation at all, but a statement of fact: the actress fills the action with her heroine so completely, so brightly and succulently (as always, however) draws the character that the film dedicated to the disappointed generation turns into an anthem of youth and change. And it does not matter what these changes bring, that freedom is understood by the young as permissiveness, that their parents and their values, the “young, unfamiliar tribe” do not care.
In fact, things are, of course, more complicated. Abril would not be a great actress if she did not know how to penetrate the essence of her heroines. Mariana, in her own way, tries to help her uncle, unaware that he may be her father, trying to stir him up, open a new world for him. But the old world too tightly sealed Louis with its roots: there is an unhappy love for Mariana’s mother, and the forced marriage to her unloved sister, and an unexpected for him almost irresistible attraction to his niece, and the realization of the meaninglessness of life. And the girl continues to play, unaware that each action plunges her uncle deeper into the abyss of despair.
It would seem that there is a caudillo here. And at the same time, Stalin was in the works of the Soviet “sixties”! The image of Franco invisibly hovers over the heroes of “Girls in Golden Panties”. He slowly but surely destroys Louis, who is used to measuring everything in life by the actions of the Leader. Unbeknownst to him, he is expelled from his souls by the generation of Mariana and Elmir, together with the director desperately and unsuccessfully trying to get rid of the past.
Probably. It’s probably not the best movie for both Aranda and Victoria Abril. Too intricate is the story with constant excursions into the past. The plot threads are too strained. And melodramatism at some point begins to prevail over psychologism: the question of whether Louis will shoot himself or not becomes more important than the reasons pushing him to do this. In addition, voluntarily or unwittingly, but gradually the eroticism of Abril by the efforts of the director comes to the fore: for the current Internet, this is, of course, a plus - the footage from the "Girl" presents the actress in all her unhidden glory. But it is hardly good for action. But not the most successful film Aranda and Abril is still a good movie. And it deserves not to be forgotten.