Word: esteban
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Subaru won't start. It won't even turn over. In a flash, Esteban is out of the car and pushing. I'm driving, and he's barking orders, which need to be translated instantaneously by T/N. I have no idea what we're doing. We stop. Esteban, sighing loudly, takes my place, and then I'm pushing. Down the road, and before long we're out of the town and into the dark fields. The road is red from the taillights and slippery and I can't get a grip, but then boom, Esteban pops the clutch...
...help? Yes, yes, we say, of course. They want to siphon from our tank. They have an actual siphon right there. We don't have enough, we say, noticing that we're almost out ourselves. We'll take them to the next town. Another man, Esteban, about 19, gets in the back seat, as does Marisa, 24, petite, in silk blouse and black jeans. They hold the gas container on their laps. It's 15 minutes to tiny-town Roda and its one-pump gas station...
...force in every subsequent scene. The next shot is a scene in an impeccably furnished apartment in Madrid. Manuela, an organ-transplant nurse played by Cecilia Roth (a luminary of the foreign film industry, with an uncanny ability to evoke tears) sits watching All About Eve with her son, Esteban (Eloy Azorin). Esteban is turning 17 the next day, and his eyes seem bright with literary genius and joie d'vivre. The relationship between mother and son is close, with Manuela and Esteban joking about sex and exchanging intellectual banter...
...dream world of the next few scenes vanishes the next night, a rainy and cold evening and Esteban's birthday. Affonso Beato, director of photography, employs clever technique interposing dot matrix drawings of women in red over Manuela's image. Similarly, the night's coldness is reflected in camera angles of rain on the windows and fog in mirrors. One can almost feel the chill of the evening on one's shoulders. This clammy sensation follows the viewer as Manuel and Esteban observe a performance of Streetcar Named Desire, a play holding special significance to Manuela. Twenty years before, Manuela...
...However, after Esteban's death, Almodvar supplies the pretentious and melodramatic art film twist, losing the faith of anyone aside from the loyal film aficionado. Manuel donates Esteban's heart and goes to Barcelona in search of Esteban's father, a transvestite originally an Esteban himself but now Lola the Pioneer. The depiction of one train moving forward and another train moving backward, when coupled with Manuela's voice-over of the history and purpose for her journey detract from Almodvar's intention that the scene serve as a point of transition and departure. In an almost music-video-like...