Word: bardem
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Javier Bardem, the Spanish hunk who won an Oscar as the killer in No Country for Old Men, was originally to play Guido. When he dropped out, the role went to Day-Lewis, an actor nearly the opposite of Bardem. He's coiled, wary, and has a spirit that's not even slightly Mediterranean. In 8-1/2, Mastroianni was such a natural charmer - so, we have to say, Italian - that he made indolence attractive; in that film, a perpetual sexual adolescence was not a flaw but a goal (especially because women kept throwing themselves at him, and what woman...
Star Quality Broken Embraces could be the title of nearly any Almodóvar film. His people are infirm creatures looking for a little hug that can be therapeutic or redemptive. The paraplegic cop played by Javier Bardem in Live Flesh doesn't shrug off sexual desire just because he's confined to a wheelchair. Almodóvar suffuses his new film with this notion of the crippled seeking help; nearly every plot point pivots on someone's infirmity. The message is clear: we are all invalids who want to walk, if the fates allow, into each other's arms...
...neither one blithered. The plot carefully built its tensions right up to a climax that confused a lot of viewers--but that too showed fidelity of the film to its source novel. The Coens' entente with genre conventions earned Oscars for Best Picture, Screenplay and Supporting Actor (for Javier Bardem as the pursuer). Those mulish brothers had proved they knew how to play a game appreciated by the film establishment and the audience; No Country was by far their biggest box-office success...
...Well, why shouldn't Allen have a crush on Juan Antonio? For one thing, he dreamed the character up; for another, Bardem doesn't have to work hard to radiate the sensitive machismo of a man who doesn't use women so much as he allows them to briefly fulfill their dreams in him. Visually, too, the movie is in love with Barcelona, its gnarled Gaudi buildings, and with the countryside of Ovieto, a hundred shades of glorious earth tones. (The cinematographer is Javier Aguirresarobe, who has shot films directed by Pedro Almodovar, Victor Erice and Alejandro Amenabar...
...Whenever Bardem or Cruz are on screen, VCB finds its heart. It sees them as fully in tune with their feelings: totally willing, and why not?, to act on impulses they've learned to trust. The Americans are children by comparison, a little stiff, so conditioned to overanalyzing every attraction that they would lose the moment - if only there weren't a Don Juan Antonio to send seismic shivers up their consciences...