FILM OF THE WEEK
INTERVIEW | preview: Manolete |
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| Written by Boyd van Hoeij | |
| Saturday, 06 January 2007 | |
 Adrien Brody in 'Manolete'. Photo (c): Lola Films, 2006. All rights reserved. Dutch-born director Menno Meyjes started his filmmaking carreer as a screenwriter, eventually garnering an Oscar nomination for his screenplay for Steven Spielberg's The Color Purple. He also contributed to such classics as Empire of the Sun and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, both also directed by Spielberg. He debuted as a director was the daring Hitler-as-an-artist film Max, with John Cusack, and also directed the upcoming The Martian Child, again with Cusack. Meyjes is currently in post-production on his third film as a director, the Spanish bullfighter biopic Manolete, an English language film that stars Adrien Brody as one of Spain's most famous bullfighters and Spanish actress Penélope Cruz as the matador's mistress, the actress Lupe Sino. The Anglo-Spanish co-production is inspired by the life of bullfighter Manuel Laureano Rodríguez Sánchez, better known as Manolete. When he died in 1947 after being gored by a bull (which was the second bull he fought that day), Spanish dictator Franco officially called for three days of national mourning. Often cited as the most famous matador of all time, Manolete was born in 1917 in Córdoba and died in 1947 in Linares, a town in the province of Jaén. He was already officially retired when coaxed back into the ring for that final match by his rival, the young bullfighter Luis Miguel Dominguín (who was also courting an actress at the time: Ava Gardner). The film will deal with the last years of Manolete’s life, when he was intensely popular, travelled throughout the Spanish-speaking world and when he was involved with the temperamental Sino. Meyjes' Manolete has a budget of around €16.5 million and was shot on locations including Córdoba, Madrid, Salamanca, Carmona, Puerto de Santa María and Sanlúcar de Barrameda, while studio work was done in the city of Alicante. Meyjes' fascination with the Mediterranean country is not new: he previously co-wrote Fernando Trueba's El sueño del mono loco (The Mad Monkey), for which he won the Best Screenplay category at the Spanish national film prizes, the Goyas. Besides Brody and Cruz, Manolete also stars upcoming Spanish actor Nacho Aldeguer (who plays Dominguín), Spanish comic star Santiago Segura (Torrente) and character actor Juan Echanove, who was recently nominated for a Goya for his supporting role alongside Viggo Mortensen in the swasbuckling epic Alatriste. The film's crew is also a mix of nationalities, much like its cast: Manolete's production design is by Salvador Parra, who also worked on the recent Pedro Almodóvar hit Volver. US cinematographer Robert Yeoman again collaborated with Meyjes, after the recently completed The Martian Child. Yeoman is most famous as the cinematographer of Wes Anderson's films, including The Royal Tenenbaums and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. Costumes were designed by Sonia Grande, who worked on Almodóvar's Hable con ella (Talk to Her) as well as the worldwide arthouse hits Mar adentro (The Sea Inside) and The Others, both by Spanish director Alejandro Amenábar. The film will likely premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in May before its release in cinemas across the continent. Related links on the web: >More on Manolete's life and his bullfighting style Related items on european-films.net: >review: Volver What's a preview? Each week, european-films.net will spotlight one upcoming film that the editors are looking forward to. This preview will contain not only a description of the film, but also information on casting, trailers and links to other pages on the web with more information. Want to suggest a film for the preview treatment? Let us know here.
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