Reviews on movie Celos (2)

Vicente Aranda continues to penetrate the human senses, this time dissecting the question of jealousy. The two heroes have everything ahead, an engagement and a happy marriage. But accidentally seen a photo changes the whole life of a man – he sees that someone put his hand on the knee of her lover. And he no longer cares what it was before - step by step he plunges into the madness of passion and tries to understand what was, to restore the chain of events. Of course, in the conventional patriarchal paradigm, there are only two possible roles for a woman – a “holy” or a “prostitute”. And it is no coincidence that the obvious impeccability of his chosen one is not taken into account by the hero. It is important to understand who she is (taking into account simple terminology). Well, since the hero is so afraid that his wife was once a dissolute woman, who knows? Perhaps his nightmares will come true. But for some reason he forgets that for his chosen one, this situation can turn into a nightmare.
So the theme of jealousy in Aranda's film is just external. In fact, as in many of his other films, he is only gently and unobtrusively trying to “identify a woman”, not just recognize gender equality, but get used to it. After all, it is no coincidence that the main character in the performance of Aitana Sanchez-Hijon turns out to be a much stronger person in the film, ready for sacrifice, patience and decisive actions than her impulsive chosen one. A slightly harsh ending should not disappoint. In fact, the end occurred in this story much earlier, and the technical finale could be any other episode.
8 out of 10

Antonio and Carmen are due to get married in a month. The boat of their late love on all sails tends to the family harbor. But it is at this moment that the villain fate throws a serious test to the groom. It all begins in that fateful minute when Antonio accidentally finds a beach photo in which his bride is carelessly hugged by a tall and handsome guy.
In an instant, happiness leaves the heart of the beloved, and like a mythical character, he goes “to wander through the labyrinths of the past in search of shadows that have dissolved into nothingness.” As a starving predatory animal, Antonio scours the area in search of Jose, the suspicious type who once dared to hug his future wife. Now Antonio's feeling for Carmen depends only on whether the deceived groom will be able to kill doubt in himself - that hungry monster that like a Minotaur tears his heart to shreds. Jealousy drives Antonio crazy, making him burn with love and hatred.
The Patriarch of Spanish cinema Vicente Aranda for many years remained in the shadow of his more famous compatriots – the older Buñuel, the younger Almodóvar, or his peer Carlos Saura. But if you look at Aranda’s track record, it becomes clear that there is no such person in the Spanish show business who would not have business with him in the last 30 years of the twentieth century. In each of his films, he either discovered a new star, or, like Pygmalion, gave a tangible impetus to the career of the ward, whether it is a 17-year-old teenage girl Victoria Abril, transvestite Bibi Andersson or cameraman Nestor Almendros.
Aranda is one of those people who, as they say, were born in the wrong era and in the wrong place. He was a hundred years late when he was born. He was also unlucky with the country: the cult of Franco did not contribute to the fact that his François Truffaut appeared in Spanish cinema. But in the heyday of courtly literature, he would not have been equal.
Merime, Maupassant, Zweig, that's his company. Big and strong feelings are his theme. It is no coincidence that two years after “Jealousy” he will shoot “Juana Mad” – a historical drama about how the betrayals of his beloved drove the Spanish queen to madness, and two more years later he will film the most classic of all “Carmen”.
Celos is deliberately unmodern in this sense. The archaic of morals and emotional overreach are necessary for the elementary balance of priorities. In order not to create the illusion that of all the arts, the main ones today are the digital wars of the cloned Sith.
Aranda makes a movie not just about fatal passion, not just about obsession, but about the battle of the sexes and its destructive nature. Unlike the younger generation, he believes that modern life is full of various obsessions and stresses, and therefore there is no need to invent them. “Jealousy” grew out of a newspaper article about a man who turned his beloved’s life into a living hell, discovering old photos in which she hugged a stranger.

The director confidently maintains the shaky balance between melodrama and manic thriller, not allowing anyone to prevail. Like a pathologist examining a corpse to find out the causes of death, he scalps the feelings of the heroes, finding many reasons for inspiration and excitement. And the deeper the discriminating groom tries to delve into the past of the bride, the more terrible the future seems to him.