Golden Balls

'Move over Almodovar', declares the blurb to this 1993 film from Bigas Luna (Jamon Jamon). Maybe, maybe not. At once satire, fantasy and an attack on Spanish mores (Ju... more >

'Move over Almodovar', declares the blurb to this 1993 film from Bigas Luna (Jamon Jamon). Maybe, maybe not. At once satire, fantasy and an attack on Spanish mores (Julio Iglesias is relentlessly lampooned as the crooner of choice for lead character), Bigas Luna follows more in the legacy of Bunel than the oft-touted heroines of Almodovar. The second in his 'Iberian passion trilogy' (coming between Jamon Jamon and The Tit and the Moon), Goldenballs charts the rise and fall of wannabe entrepreneur Benito Gonzalez who, in an exercise of Freudian masculinity, attempts to build the tallest skyscraper in Benidorm. Benito remains the ultimate anti-hero, the bastard progeny of 80’s consumerism and the doubts of machismo ('Why have you got two Rolex’s?' a curious business partner asks of him, ' I’ve got two balls, so I have two Rolexes' is the self evident reply). Indeed, the versatile Javier Bardem, a Latin heartthrob before the booties of Banderas and senora Hayak ever came onto the scene, is inspiringly cast as the impressionable and leering schoolboy fantasist (‘I’ll think I’ll start smoking cigars’, he confides to his friend after a meeting with a shady investor). However, undone by his quartet of sexual interests, his excesses fizzle out into ignominious mediocrity. The same cannot be said of the fortunes of Spanish cinema. < less

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Film Details

Cast

Javier Bardem, Maria de Medeiros

Technical Details