I write this principally in response to the critical comments you print under this title from, "Chuck V", who appears to have missed the point of this film entirely...I have seen "Volver a Empezar"--in parts---both on the Sundance Channel and TVE (the Spanish Television Network). Since then I have been hunting for it high and low here and in Canada so that I could see it from beginning to end, without interruption... It is a brilliant and affecting film, probably best appreciated by mature audiences with some grounding and sensitivity to literature and history and a cinematic background that antedates Cineplexes and four-wall stereophonic sound...It is a brilliant and pointed film, winning the Foreigh Film Oscar for that year...Yes, I love Pachelbel's Canon; and I could hear "begin the Beguine" endlessly--whether it's the Artie Shaw version or Fred Astaire and Eleanor Powell dancing the hell out of it in "Broadway Melody of 1940...One may care not a whit about the tragedy of the Spanish Civil War, loss of one's love and country and long exile, or, lastly, the illusion of triumphant return and recovery in late middle age, but there has to be admiration for sensitive direction and montage, and graceful and impacting performances by mature actors.
Review of Begin the Beguine
