Movie Review: Torremolinos 73

Torremolinos 73: Torgo approves

Can you see what's happening in that picture? If so, it pretty much sums up the movie.

Alfredo is a door-to-door encyclopedia salesman. It's 1973. Sales are poor. So his company enlists him and his wife, Carmen, to help make an 'audiovisual encyclopedia of human reproduction' that will only be exported to Scandinavian countries.

Carmen, meanwhile, desperately wants to get pregnant. So their need for money and her wish to have a baby lead them to make some really funny porn.

This is a Spanish comedy. Like many Spanish films I've seen recently, it takes a plotline that in American would be as simple as "Orgazmo" and moves it somewhere more serious and somber.

Alfredo's film mentor claims to be a student of Ingmar Bergman, so eventually, Alfredo tries his hand at penning a Bergman-inspired non-porn feature film called "Torremolinos 73."

Having recently watched "The Seventh Seal" makes this sequence all the more comical.

Unlike "Orgazmo," there are some beautifully directed scenes, several nicely placed repeating images (like the staircase scene at the beginning and end), and a genuine, emotionally complex ending.

I found this on the Netflix instant viewing list, while looking through foreign films for a comedy because, seriously, the American comedy list includes things like "Short Circuit," "National Lampoon's Dorm Daze 2," and "Larry the Cable Guy: Git R Done."