Broken Embraces

2009, Rated R, 127 minutes,  Directed & Written by Pedro Almodovar, Produced by Agustin Almodovar and Esther Garcia, Cinematography by Rodrigo Prieto, Original Music by Alberto Iglesias

With: Penelope Cruz (Lena), Lluis Homar (Mateo Blanco/Harry Caine), Blnaco Portillo (Judit Garcia), Jose Luis Gomez (Ernesto Martel), Tamar Novas (Diego), Ruben Ochandiano (Ray X)

Broken Embraces  is the fourth time Spanish director Pedro Almodovar and Penelope Cruz worked together, and it is this pairing of the two that creates a lush and enthralling noirish love story that will enrapture your senses. Broken Embraces is a beautifully created story about all kinds of love: obsessive love, passionate love, love of family, love of film and love of beauty. Almodovar constructs a beautiful world where Cruz is able to take her acting to places it has never been to breathe a beautiful depth to the film.

Knife in the Water

1962, NR, 94 minutes, Directed by Roman Polanski, Written (in Polish with English subtitles) by Jakub Goldberg, Roman Polanski & Jery Skolimowski, Produced by Stanislaw Zylewicz, Cinematorgraphy by Jerzy Lipman, Music by Krzystztof Komeda 

With: Leon Niemczyk (Andrzej), Jolanta Umecka (Krystyna), Zygmunt Malanowicz (Young Boy)

It all started innocently enough. A older professor and his much younger wife decide to spend a day sailing on the lake. But that all changes when the professor decides to pick up a brash young hitchhiker and bring him along. With the addition of one man a day on the lake becomes a day of tension and competition, a male one upmanship. So is the story in Roman Polanski’s A Knife in the Water.