House of Spirits (1993)
Cast:
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Meryl Streep |
Clara del Valle / Trueba |
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Glenn Close |
Férula Trueba |
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Jeremy Irons |
Esteban Trueba |
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Winona Ryder |
Blanca Trueba |
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Antonio Banderas |
Pedro Tercero Garcia |
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Vanessa Redgrave |
Nivea del Valle |
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Maria Conchita Alonso |
Tránsito Soto |
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Armin Mueller-Stahl |
Severo del Valle |
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Jan Niklas |
Jean de Satigny |
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The Story:
It's diffcult to summarize this epic story in a few words...I'll try:
The young patron Esteban Trueba is the master of Tres Marias. He rules with strong hands. During his first days he forces a young poor woman to make love with him. From this unholly act she had an offspring: Esteban jr.
Esteban never loves his son...pushing him away whenever possible. The hate on Esteban and his family grows in this young man...he's waiting for revenge...
Later Esteban marries the high-spirited Clara, who is in a mysterious way out of this world. During this few happy years they got their only child: Blanca.
Clara becomes the good spirit at Tres Marias. She's giving the children of the workers and Blanca school-lessons. Blanca befriends to Pedro, son of the chief-worker.
Esteban however forbid any contact between Blanca and Pedro. But that can't stop their friendship...and friendship elvolves into love over the years...and Blanca gets pregnant...
Meanwhile Pedro becomes a political activist...he wants to free the slave-like workers. Esteban nearly shot him, he has to run away. After also hurting Clara and Blanca, both left to the house of Clara's parents...
Esteban then got active in Conservative Party, making it up to senator. But the CP can't hold their power...the People's Front won the elections and Pedro is one of it's leaders...
Clara dies...and while at the funeral, the military takes command and turnes the country into a bloody dictatorship. Blanca mangages to save Pedro at her mothers house...but she gets arrested by the military...
Esteban jr., now an interrogator for the military, sees his chance to take brutal revenge on Blanca. He tortures her...for all the love he never got...
Esteban gets Perdo to the Canadian Embassy...and after an old girl friend of him has bribed some high-ranking militaries...they even release Blanca...
My Opinion:
A great epic story about a family and life in latin-america.
Bernd Eichinger assembled a great all-star cast.
Winona acts extremely well as Blanca. Especially the torture scenes are very disturbing and intense. I'm always sad how cruel ideas humans can have when it comes to torture other humans.
I've made an extra collage of this scenes, I don't want them in the main collage. But as this scenes are very hard to watch, decide for yourself if you wanna see it here .
No matter if I see things like this in movies or in the news I'm always torn: should I cry...or did my anger about this inhumanity take over...
Another great scene is, where Blanca and her father are driving back to her mothers house after buying christmas presents...both are looking out of the window...ignoring each other...both proud and stubborn...
Noni talked about playing the torture scenes some years later while filming Girl, Interrupted:
"Playing a character who's tortured", she explains," I'd get into makeup and look at myself in the mirror and think, "This it what I'm doing to myself, inside." It was this feeling of "I'm too sensitive for this world". "
Some torture scenes were cut after consultations with Amnesty International – among one of them was a scene were Blanca was raped by Esteban jr.
As far as I now the only movie Winona made for a german company: Neue Constantin Film (named after the brilliant german actor, producer, entertainer and studio executive Freddie Constantin). The movie was produced by Bernd Eichinger and filmed on location in portugal.
Articles:
Behind the Scenes:
Some Promotion Shots:
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Vidcaps from the movie:
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MP3:
