Between Your Legs (1999) Entre las Piernas Miranda is a crew member of a nightly radio programmme. She and her husband Felix, a cop, are parents of a girl. Miranda's daily dog walking strolls are excuses to pursue sexual encounters with men, who she readily discards afterwards. In order to deal with her sex addiction,
she signs up for therapy. Also in the group is Javier, a successful scriptwriter and producer who is a sex-phone junkie. The two misfits hit off and a steamy affair ensues. But things get a little complicated when Javier finds out that this phone sex trysts have been secretly taped and being distributed all over Madrid, and that his ex-wife is living with his business partner. Elsewhere, while investigating a murder case, Felix discovers Miranda's affair with Javier. I felt betrayed at the end when I noticed the strong homophobic sentiment of the movie. It just shows how the Spanish society continues being so conservative. Like the prejudices behind this movie, the first negative reactions in Spain to the movie "Bad Education," where the main actors behave homosexually and bisexually, just serves to prove that a large number of people in Spain are still trapped by the sexual mores of the Catholic Church. But besides the issue of homosexuality, the smoking like chimneys, and the fact that the thriller could have been made better, the movie is one of the best in its genre. I specially liked Victoria Abril's performance. In Abril, the movie took a thirty-something women and made her the sexual object and the central sexual figure of the narrative. This contrasts with Hollywood's productions in which most females playing such roles are teenagers, twenty-something, or extremely glamorous. I think this movie illustrates by contrast how the U.S. society is so obsessed with youth, to the detriment of older women in particular.
October 2, 2009
