"A Modern Spanish Classic"
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What You Need To Know:
All of this sets the stage for one of the most magnificent movies ever made. This story is on a par with DON QUIXOTE. THE GRANDFATHER considers the great issues in life and comes to some wonderful conclusions. The countryside, the oceans, the estates are beautiful. The dialogue is profound. The acting superbly realistic. THE GRANDFATHER exposes man’s foibles and says man is created in the image of God. Well worth watching, it will have a very limited release, but deserves recognition. It is a movie that you’ll want to see again and again.
Content:
(CCC, Ro, B, L, S, A, D, M) Christian worldview with romantic elements & moral elements that discusses honor vs. love & has profound philosophical themes, 1 obscenity & 1 profanity; threats of violence but none consummated; discussion of adultery & infidelity; alcohol use; smoking; and, immorality rebuked.
More Detail:
An Academy award nominee, THE GRANDFATHER is a magnificent Spanish historical tale about the true meaning of honor family and love. The movie opens with Lucrecia (Cayetana Guillén Cuervo) rejecting her powerful paramour, who has married someone else to advance his own cause. Cut to Lucrecia’s daughters, Dolly (Cristina Cruz) and Nelly (Alicia Rozas), who live in the country on the former estate of their grandfather (Don Rodrigo de Arista Potestad (Fernando Fernán-Gómez), a count. His former servants now run the estate because he lost all of his wealth searching for gold in the Americas. Lucrecia is now the countess, and she holds the title to the remaining properties.
She wants her daughters to be brought up in the country, so the “bad air” of Madrid does not affect them. As they play, Dolly and Nell discuss God and their faith in God. Nelly says that God is everywhere; so, Dolly listens for him, and Nelly looks for Him. After a beat, Nelly says, “There he is.” However, the old man walking in the woods turns out not to be God, but her Grandfather, the old Count of Albrit. Now, penniless and almost blind, he is returning from Peru mainly to get acquainted with his granddaughter, for one of the two girls is not his granddaughter, but the product of one of Lucrecia’s affairs, an affair which caused his son Don Rafael to die of a broken heart.
The Count wants to pass on his honor to his natural descendant, but the Lucrecia opposes him. She manipulates the town leaders, former servants who have become opportunists and sycophants, to try and closet away the Count in the old monastery. The Count befriends the teacher, Pio Coronado (Rafael Alonso), a brilliant man humbled by the greed of his own daughters and kinder than anyone should possibly be.
All of this sets the stage for one of the most magnificent movies ever made. This story is on a par with DON QUIXOTE in many ways. It considers the great issues in life and comes to some wonderful conclusions. The countryside, the oceans, the estates are beautiful. The dialogue is profound. The acting is superbly realistic. The seeming realism hides a depth of wisdom. Which is more important, honor or love? It exposes man’s foibles, and the fact that man is created in the image of God. Well worth watching, it will have a very limited release, but deserves recognition.
There is no overt sex or violence in THE GRANDFATHER, but discussions of Lucrecia’s indiscretions and immoralities. She repents in the end and goes to confession. Immorality is rebuked, and higher virtues are lifted up. A tender story with a great heart, it doesn’t fall into the romantic confusion of extolling immorality. It does show that priests and monks can be human, which may be disturbing but is probably realistic. Like another foreign masterpiece, THE TREE OF WOODEN CLOGS, it is a movie that you’ll want to see again and again.
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