Summer Rain (2006)

Must See Movie...

Just perfect...

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

youth, sex,searches of life's sense, stories from the Franco's Spain, classic recipes about expectations, relation with family, love and need to escape. far to be a bad film, it seems have a specific public. the beauty of images, the atmosphere of Malaga, the references to American films about the same subject saves it to be only a movie by Antonio Banderas. because, more than an adaptation, it preserves and shows the spirit of a period. that is its basic virtue. and the remind of universal values. a beautiful film. not great, not impressive, only beautiful. and that could be enough. because it reminds more than presents.

An advice to many actors trying to go into directing would be: Stay in front of the camera! This could well be what one would wish Antonio Banderas, a performer that has enjoyed a good career both in his native Spain and in America. His directorial debut, "Crazy in Alabama" was not the success we are sure he expected. With his new film "El camino de los ingleses", or "Summer Rain", the English title, will not add anything for his resume. We could suggest that Mr. Banderas keeps his daytime job where he has done well.Mr. Banderas working with the Antonio Soler novel, which we have not read, goes back to the not too distant past to Malaga, his birth place, with a story that is confusing, at best, because this story of coming of age does not go anywhere the way it is presented on the screen. One had all the intentions of enjoying it, but the story is simply too local to transcend into audiences of other countries.The most interesting of the different friends that hang out together is Barbirusa, a confused young man that has to come to grips with reality when he visits his mother in London, only to realize she is a prostitute working the sex trade in an explicit way. Miguelito, the young man who falls for Luli, gets our attention, at times. He has an awakening to sex with an older teacher.One can only hope Mr. Banderas finds better material when he decides to try his hand at directing again, and to keep it simple. A lot of would be directors like to go for an artistic look that frankly doesn't add anything to what they are trying to present. That seems to be what happened to Mr. Banderas with his second film.

Summer Rain , The English road or as the original title say "El camino de los ingleses " is a movie that takes artistic risks and of course that lead to mistakes . In the good part of things we have very good performances of the cast , great photography and a risky director . The screenplay is not conventional and the movie is almost experimental in parts but ... so what ? I agree with some reviews .Sometimes the narrator or voice over is used to much . But I think this movie don't try to fit in the conventional movie storytelling and it's not looking to be the mtv movie awards new sensation. But it's telling the story of young people in Malaga,Spain in the 70s trying to find their place in their world. I give it 7.

I tried really hard to like this film, I promise. I enjoyed Crazy in Alabama and I like Banderas as a person. He is an interesting character. However, this film is a failure. Either that or I didn't get the point at all. Two hours of movie that feel like four, a disjointed script, some supposedly poetic images without any meaning and a bunch of wasted talented actors. It begins decently but as the plot unfolds it drifts away into a hopeless nonsense. I used to think that if I didn't understand a film it was my fault and I had to watch it again making an effort to really comprehend what it meant. Nowadays, I simply believe that if I don't get the point of the movie is just because the director didn't explain it correctly. Sorry, Antonio, try harder next time.