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movie review
Melancholy and nostalgia gild "Princesas,"
a tale of working girls
*** RATING
By Michael Booth
Denver Post Staff Writer
Article Last Updated:10/26/2006 12:30:12 AM MDT
Shooting for a realistic prostitution movie is a tough trick
for most filmmakers, pardon the phrasing. Edge toward the
Cinderella fantasy for a hooker with a heart of gold, and you
create "Pretty Woman," a fine entertainment but not
exactly deep.
Steep the plot in nihilism and you wind up with "Leaving
Las Vegas," a terrific movie but so dark as to be nearly
inhuman.
Spanish director Fernando Leon de Aranoa achieves his winning
tone in "Princesas" by focusing on the sisterhood of
working girls in a nondescript neighborhood in Madrid. Caye
(Candela Peņa) and Zulema (Micaela Nevarez) insulate themselves
from the degradations of their trade by gingerly exploring what
they have in common as daughters, girlfriends, mothers and
breadwinners.
Peņa as Caye is the soul of this accomplished movie by
Aranoa, who is much-decorated in his home country. Her face,
strikingly reminiscent of Holly Hunter's, combines a sense of
calm foresight with a set of girlish, irresponsible priorities:
She carefully saves and counts her street earnings, with the
intention of buying breast implants that will increase her
business and please a "real" boyfriend.
Zulema lives more dangerously, though she has more to
protect. She is an illegal immigrant from the Dominican
Republic, sending money home to her 5-year-old boy; she offers
free services to a sadistic businessman who promises to come
through with residency papers.
One dreamy, coffee shop exchange between the women is worth
the price of admission and is just sad enough to be the perfect
dialogue for our autumn backdrop. Zulema talks of missing her
boy, and how she longs to play with him. She wonders if
nostalgia is too painful to indulge.
Caye responds that nostalgia means you've had good times, and
you miss them. She herself doesn't get nostalgic, because
"nothing worth missing has ever happened to me."
Then she lets Zulema in on her secret: She has nostalgia for
things that haven't happened yet, imagined small comforts yet to
come in her troubled life. All she really wants is to be picked
up after work by a nice guy. A real boyfriend driving her home
from a job - no doubt a job more acceptable than her current one
- is the only luxury she desires.
Aranoa sketches a melancholy based on accurate human
observation, much like "Hannah and Her Sisters" or
"As Good as It Gets." Zulema has dinner with Caye's
family, when Caye and her brother are exasperated that their
widowed mother sends herself flowers and pretends they're from a
secret admirer.
She even writes out the note cards in capital letters to
disguise her hand, Caye snickers. A less kind director might
have left it at that, but after pausing a beat, Zulema asks,
"What does she write to herself?" The question hangs
in the air like an accusation against the irreverent children,
and an opening to the future, for someone to make a connection
by trying to find out.
Staff writer Michael Booth can be reached at 303-954-1686
or mbooth@denverpost.com.
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