Word: pedro
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Esteban the patron (Jeremy Irons) wakes up horny, saddles his horse and goes out to rape a peasant, you just know this isn't going to turn out to be an idle incident. A little later, when he is outraged at discovering his prepubescent daughter Blanca skinny-dipping with Pedro, his estancia foreman's son, you sense that moment too is going to have its consequences somewhere down the plot line. For from its opening frames, The House of the Spirits announces itself as one of those sagas in which there are no accidents, only portents of big-time ironies...
Sure enough, Blanca grows up to be a rebellious Winona Ryder, and Pedro turns into a revolutionary played by Antonio Banderas (of Philadelphia) -- enemy of the privileges Esteban holds dear, progenitor (out of wedlock) of the granddaughter he holds dearer still. When the fascists stage their inevitable coup, it is, of course, the bastard Esteban begot in that long-ago dawn who turns up trying to torture Blanca into revealing Pedro's whereabouts...
...campaign under way -- the formal launch takes place a week after Easter -- police and a special prosecutor are exploring the possibility of a wider conspiracy to kill Colosio. The FBI has been called in to help probe the background of gunman Mario Aburto Martinez, who once lived in San Pedro, California. Police arrested a second suspect last week: Tranquilino Sanchez Venegas, 56, a retired security guard, who had just joined Colosio's crowd-control force and is charged with complicity in the murder...
Meanwhile, Blanca grows to be a young woman (Winona Ryder) and has an affair, with a revolutionary peasant, Pedro (Antonio Banderas), giving birth to an illegitimate child of her own, and infuriating her father, who is not insightful enough to realize that he has done exactly the same thing years earlier...
Winona Ryder's unpredictable acting is at its worst in "the House of the Spirit." Love scenes between Pedro and Blanca are meaningless; true passion is completely absent in their relationships. Pedro's attempts at fiery speeches intended to stir the peasant workers into revolt are equally uninspired, and we are left to puzzle over this sudden attempt at a political message...