Queen lacks direction
Movies about movies have been around almost as long as movies themselves. Back in 1913, Mabel’s Dramatic Career showed a crowd watching a movie within the movie, and a confused cinemagoer getting so upset at a fight scene that he pulls out a pistol and shoots the screen.
The Queen of Spain moves things forward to the early 1950s, when U.S. studios were beginning to flex their muscles with overseas productions. Writerdirector Fernando Trueba made The Girl of Your Dreams in 1998, about a Spanish company making a wartime co-production in Nazi Germany. This loose sequel brings back Penelope Cruz and many of her co-stars, this time working for a big U.S. production in their homeland.
The sprawling cast includes Mandy Patinkin as a blacklisted screenwriter and his Princess Bride co-star Cary Elwes as a hammy actor. But the main story concerns Blas Fontiveros (Antonio Resines), who appears at the start of the film to the surprise of everyone: They assumed he’d perished in a wartime concentration camp.
Blas, a director in his own right, is hired by the U.S. studio as second assistant director — the first A.D. position having already been filled through the corruption and nepotism we’re meant to believe is rampant. Blas is happy for any work, but before he can start he
is arrested by Franco’s police and tossed into a labour camp. The clueless Americans barely notice, but Blas’s colleagues start to plan a way to break him out.
This may sound like enough fodder even given the film’s twohour running time. But Trueba is determined to give every actor, cameraman and grip a few scenes in which to shine, resulting in an overstuffed story that staggers from subplot to subplot.
Some of it is amusing — the John Ford look-alike who constantly falls asleep in the director’s chair, or the leading man who can cry on cue by putting his hand down his trousers and squeezing. And some is historically fascinating, as when we see pre-digital tricks like matte paintings and foreground miniatures made to look huge by the placement of the camera.
It’s not enough to save The Queen of Spain from its rambling plot, but it will give you something to think about during the film’s looser moments. You can also ponder how it is that Cruz seems not to have aged a day in the 19 years between The Girl of Your Dreams and this one. Now that is some movie magic.