Linbeymusol
Wonderful character development!
Nonureva
Really Surprised!
Pluskylang
Great Film overall
runamokprods
Very wordy, almost feels like a theater piece at times. A young man, somewhat lost, comes from Argentina to Madrid to be with his distanced, emotionally detached filmmaker father. But he ends up spending almost as much time with his dad's sexy, druggie younger mistress, (an incandescent performance by Cecilia Roth) and his dad's hedonistic, bi-sexual actor best friend.Entertaining and moving at times, the central character (the filmmaker-father) is so removed, and so hurtful it becomes hard to understand why the others continue to put up with him. It also gets a bit repetitive, as it becomes obvious that each time the father starts to open up, he'll just close down again. And it can feel very wordy.It reminded me of a pretty good Woody Allen drama. If it had more humor it might have made it even better. Still, I'm glad I saw it, and I find moments and performances stick with me. And on second viewing I liked it a bit more, forgiving the theatricality, and enjoying getting to know these people.
recordingunit
Martin(Hache) drawed the relationship between a father (played as a giant for Federico Luppi) and his son (beautiful Juan Diego Botto). The story runs towards Madrid and Buenos Aires, mixturing perfectly the lifes of four people completely misunderstood. I love this film, because I do. But what I love the most is the dialogues. Scenes that nothing have to do with the movie shows the magistral scripters selected for it... But I´d rather prefer the original version, it´s purer than English one. Perfect directed, perfect performances, Perfect script (with a capital P). Just sit down, relax, and learn. You´ll really enjoy it.
Keith F. Hatcher
At times I felt this film might have been adapted from stage-theatre, so good are the dialogues; scintillating, the right way to speak Spanish – if you will excuse the `porteño' accent so very necessary for the film. The old `maestro' Federico Luppi is about as good as in any other film I have seen him in, I suppose; Juan Diego de Botto is better than in other films of his that I have seen; but the real standing ovation is for Eusebio Ponce who plays very delicately and intelligently the philosophical homosexual, and Cecilia Roth is outstanding as the film-director's girl-friend. Though I must say that I am beginning to get accustomed to Cecilia Roth being outstanding in everything she does.The direction is right – spot on; tight, befitting the excellent playing out of the dialogues and demanding great skill with the camera and later the person with the scissors. Adolfo Arastarain worked hard for this one: the result is a hugely satisfying piece.Once again, as erstwhile said elsewhere in IMDb, for those who like real character-driven pieces with intelligent dialogues, this film is highly recommendable. However, for those of you with a fair knowledge of Spanish, if you are not used to the Argentinian (porteño) accent you may well have problems, such that you will need the subtitles. It is worth the effort, I can assure you: just over 8 out of 10, which is pretty high on my scale.
Ian-67
Martin (Hache) is one of the best films because the plot is about feelings, about the relationship between humans. Real people listening, learning and talking with real people.Excellent characters with a lot to tell, to listen. A plot that we may live every day and we didn't notice, a plot that shakes to the point to think why you really are alive...If you miss this, you will lose two hours of reflection.
