Genre: Comedy
Language: Spanish
Duration: 93 minutes
Director: Marina Seresesky
Cast: Carmen Machi, Pepón Nieto, Kiti Mánver, Jimmy Castro, Ricardo Nkosi, Montse Pla, Malcolm Treviño-Sitté
Music: Fernando Velázquez
Editing: Marta Velasco
Introduction:
I just stumbled upon this movie while browsing Netflix, wherein it was added on 1 Nov 2019.
This simple sweet comedy with subtle imparting of a couple of deep messages reminded me a lot of an old movie named The Gods Must Be Crazy (1980).
Both the movies bring to the forefront the fact that mankind in general is ruled by fixed perspectives and mindset. We find beauty, safety and usefulness in only shapes, sizes, colors, tastes, flavors, noises and patterns that we are accustomed with or are aware of. For this reason, anything out of the ordinary or from a far off land or civilization seems ugly, threatening and useless to us!
'A Remarkable Tale' brings to our notice an addictional fact that more we are secured in a setting, more rigid we are prone to change it's dynamics. But in the event of scarcity or threat of extinction, we embrace just anything and anyone to be able to stay afloat comfortably.
The Plot:
The remote mountain village of Fuentejuela de Arriba, Spain is at the risk of disappearing forever. It's villager count is not even a score, out of which 80% are old people.
The village needs to have a head count of at least 16 people, or else the concerned visiting authorities would declare it extinct, stop the facilities of visiting priest, sweeper etc. and remove it from the map. The fact that later on they plan to use this opportunity to ensure some big commercial gains is a different story altogether.
Though old and clad in funny hand knitted sweaters (which seemed cute to me), the village residents are patriotic about their place of stay and proud of their famous egg custard tarts, which they make in abundance for selling outside the village.
They wait in anticipation with a lot of welcome preparations for the tourist buses to make a stop over at their village in vain. Even when an old man dies, his wife never tells anyone or cremates him due to the fear of bringing to everyone's notice that the village count has decreased by one!
When a dance group of three men and one woman arrive unexpectedly from Africa, the whole village goes into a tizzy because of the sheer culture shock.
Both the original Spanish residents and visiting African dancers find each other's appearance, clothes, food and dance steps funny. They also have trust issues with each other.
While the villagers are worried sick and feeling helpless about ever decreasing village count and ever looming danger of identity crisis, the visiting dancers find the villagers' lives quite blissful as they have comfortable homes to stay and enough food on the table, something that they don't have back home. Also, if caught by the authorities, they would be deported back to the life of hunger and misery.
Using their arrival as a blessing in disguise, the mayor's wife comes up with a shocking plan, which eventually proves to be a rather dramatic and unusual but still a win-win situation for all concerned.
Movie Analysis:
It's a well made movie with apt casting and good - acting, background score and editing. It's light hearted and flows in a singular rhythm. Neither it bores you for a second, nor it accelerates your heartbeat or pumps your adrenaline at any point of time.
Message:
Amongst all it's comedies and mash up of two distinct cultures i.e. of European whites and African blacks, the movie teaches you the virtue of cultural integration and tolerance and depicts the fact that such a mammoth task is actually quite natural and easy if we are ready to see the things from all the possible perspectives.
The movie is a big slap on the mindset that stereotypes communities and races.
Also, it beautifully portrays the fact that, for the humans, post food and oxygen, nothing can surpasses the need of human companionship and two individuals can feel compatible irrespective of differences in their age, race, color, nationality, social status, literacy level and the likes.
