November (2003)

Best movie of this year hands down!

Simply A Masterpiece

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

I first watched this movie about 5 years ago I believe and since that day it held the place to be the best movie I have ever watched. (It's because of personal reasons mostly) I'm a theater actress and I started my career with street theater. The movie is perfect for me because it is relatable. All of the terrible things and obstacles that were shown in the movie still exists for those who wanna do street theater. People don't have enough money for themselves let alone watching a theater play. And lemme tell you something, if it's not a government-payed theater ''company'' it is expensive. Because the stage rents, the decor and costume expenses, everything you need to stage a play -including the taxes- are outrages. People want to do street theater because they want everyone to be able to have fun and watch a play. They think theater should have a purpose and it should. From the early days of Ancient Greek theater had always have a purpose and a message to tell people.Believe me, you won't regret watching this movie. We are still going through the same things after 14 years of its release.

Just caught this on HBO-Latino. My Spanish is very limited so I couldn't understand that much either. But I don't think it's helpful to say it's "definitely an artsy masturbation job". I would urge readers to pay more attention to the fact that 150 people gave it a vote of 8 out of 10. Even the 1st reviewer gave it an 8. SEE THIS FILM! I thought it was very provocative -- an indie that deserves the name in the best of the tradition. Even if it is pretentious or self-important, or whatever 'artsy masturbation' means, this film goes well outside the dull, predictable, mainstream -- at least in its ambition if not farther. But not in a Warhol kind of way. It had something to say. Perhaps the message was, as Ben Harper sings, "You have to fight, Fight, FIGHT.......for your mind", i.e., fight conformism, fight indoctrination, fight regimentation, fight bourgeois control of the mind space. And enjoy the freedom you obtain thereby.Just my $0.02

This is a movie about the lost if innocence in cinema, in theatre... in art. Alfredo, the main character, is just a boy who loves theatre, he doesn't want to become a big movie star, nor a stage star. He doesn't want even to make money by acting. So he decides to create an independent street theatre company with some of his partners from the Art School. The movie isn't based on a true story, but it certainly looks like it was (We can see all the characters 30 years after the company was created, talking about it. Just like if it was a documentary). It does not matter that much if the performances of Alfredo and his crew aren't too brilliant because that's not what this film is about. You don't have to live in Spain to comprehend the point of this movie (as the previous commentator suggests). Just take a look around and see how everything in art's been prostituted. That's what this film is about. About not giving in, about fighting the establishment. Although the final sequence clearly shows us that the establishment cannot be beaten. Sad but true. Noviembre is one of the more brilliant Spanish films that I've recently seen. I highly recommend you to watch it. Nevermind if you're Spanish, north-American, or German...

Never read anything about this film, so when it showed on cable, I decided to see it. The idea of making theatre in the streets seemed an interesting idea. To bring drama to the masses, in that environment, is to be commended.Approaching Achero Manas' picture, without having any background to the history behind it, doesn't make much sense to an ordinary viewer. Maybe to audiences in Spain, it might resonate, or at least, given the publicity surrounding some of its most daring pieces, they could bring a proximity, which to me, seemed illusive, at best.First of all, the group, as I gathered, was active in Madrid in the past. We see Alfredo organizing his troupe of actors, then we are given glimpses of some of their work in the center of the city. The director brings another dimension by adding an explanation as to why things worked, or didn't, and its ultimate demise, by presenting actors, mostly in their 50s or older, talking directly to the camera telling us about their experiences when they were young. If we are to believe them, it would have put the action as having taken place in the 60s, in a Spain where Franco still dominated and most of the actions of the Noviembre group would not have occurred, and not in the recent past. If the director wanted to add this sort of device, he would have achieved more reality by presenting the same actors we see, throughout the film, as part of the Noviembre group, doing the explanations.Some of the Noviembre theater pieces aren't even interesting! One wonders what was the big deal about them. Maybe the fact that it was never done in Spain? In other western countries, where street performances happen on a daily basis, these performances they did, seem very tame and pointless. Only their piece about the assault to apparently innocent bystanders have any real punch, the rest, doesn't amount to much.Unfortunately this Spanish film seems to have been made for only a few, that knew the in joke, not for the rest of us outside of Spain.