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Title: La Vos de su Amo (His Master's Voice)
Cast: Eduardo Fernandez, Silvia Abascal, Joaquim de Almeida, Imanol Arias, Ana Otero, Alicia Agut
Director: Emilio Martmnez-Lazaro, Carlos Lopez
Producer: Andris Vicente Gsmez
Screenplay: Josi Angel Esteban, Emilio Martmnez-Lazaro, Alfredo Montoya
Cinematography: Javier Salmones
Country: Spain
Year: 2001
Variety His Master's Voice
Jonathan Holland
Nov 16, 2001
La Voz De Su Amo
An intelligent, upbeat thriller that welds an invented storyline onto a factual background, Emilio Martinez-Lazaro's "His Master's Voice" takes a riskier route than his earlier pic, the pleasant but innocuous road movie "Backroads" (1997). Dealing with the involvement of Basque separatist organization ETA in the business world, the movie manages to suggest the moral and political complexity of the subject without sensationalizing it. Pic did OK B.O. at home on release in April; offshore interest has been limited, given the culturally specific theme.
Pic is set in Bilbao in 1980, a year in which ETA killed 100 people. Thirtysomething Charli (Eduard Fernandez), a onetime wannabe soccer player and ETA member, works as a chauffeur and bodyguard for shady Portuguese businessman Oliveira (Joaquim de Almeida). When an ETA car bomb kills one of Oliveira's associates for having refused to bow to ETA extortion, Oliveira asks Charli to protect his daughter, Marta (Silvia Abascal), and, after some cat-and-mouse games, Charli and Marta end up sleeping together.
Further pressure is thus placed on Charli's already over-burdened conscience, particularly when he starts to fall in love with Marta. The dramatic difficulties of portraying a relationship between an older man and someone almost young enough to be his daughter are well-handled, each of them seeking love but not knowing where to find it.
When an ex-lover of Oliveira's, junkie Katy (Ana Otero), is killed, Charli, who has been following her for Oliveira, is arrested and interrogated by a distinctly unfriendly cop (Imanol Arias). Oliveira agrees to pay protection money to the terrorists, but then is kidnapped. The distinction between friend and foe has broken down for Charli, who now must go it alone.
Pic is good on the complexity of the situation in the Basque country -- where radical nationalism affects life at all levels, from the political to the personal. Charli is trapped between the demands of his aging mother (Alicia Agut), Marta, Oliveira and the ETA, and Fernandez's intense, unsmiling perf pulsates with low-level rage, switching to straight disillusion as it becomes clear that his old and new employers are both corrupt. Abascal plays Marta with a combination of innocent eroticism and femme fatale calculation.
Apart from a tendency toward film noir cliches, pic is visually interesting, pointing up the fact that all this corruption and death takes place against a paradisiacal rural background. Dramatic score is efficient.


		Title: La Vos de su Amo (His Master's Voice) Cast: Eduardo Fernandez, Silvia Abascal, Joaquim de Almeida, Imanol Arias, Ana Otero, Alicia Agut Director: Emilio Martmnez-Lazaro, Carlos Lopez Producer: Andris Vicente Gsmez Screenplay: Josi Angel Esteban, Emilio Martmnez-Lazaro, Alfredo Montoya Cinematography: Javier Salmones Country: Spain Year: 2001 Variety His Master's Voice Jonathan Holland Nov 16, 2001 La Voz De Su Amo An intelligent, upbeat thriller that welds an invented storyline onto a factual background, Emilio Martinez-Lazaro's "His Master's Voice" takes a riskier route than his earlier pic, the pleasant but innocuous road movie "Backroads" (1997). Dealing with the involvement of Basque separatist organization ETA in the business world, the movie manages to suggest the moral and political complexity of the subject without sensationalizing it. Pic did OK B.O. at home on release in April; offshore interest has been limited, given the culturally specific theme. Pic is set in Bilbao in 1980, a year in which ETA killed 100 people. Thirtysomething Charli (Eduard Fernandez), a onetime wannabe soccer player and ETA member, works as a chauffeur and bodyguard for shady Portuguese businessman Oliveira (Joaquim de Almeida). When an ETA car bomb kills one of Oliveira's associates for having refused to bow to ETA extortion, Oliveira asks Charli to protect his daughter, Marta (Silvia Abascal), and, after some cat-and-mouse games, Charli and Marta end up sleeping together. Further pressure is thus placed on Charli's already over-burdened conscience, particularly when he starts to fall in love with Marta. The dramatic difficulties of portraying a relationship between an older man and someone almost young enough to be his daughter are well-handled, each of them seeking love but not knowing where to find it. When an ex-lover of Oliveira's, junkie Katy (Ana Otero), is killed, Charli, who has been following her for Oliveira, is arrested and interrogated by a distinctly unfriendly cop (Imanol Arias). Oliveira agrees to pay protection money to the terrorists, but then is kidnapped. The distinction between friend and foe has broken down for Charli, who now must go it alone. Pic is good on the complexity of the situation in the Basque country -- where radical nationalism affects life at all levels, from the political to the personal. Charli is trapped between the demands of his aging mother (Alicia Agut), Marta, Oliveira and the ETA, and Fernandez's intense, unsmiling perf pulsates with low-level rage, switching to straight disillusion as it becomes clear that his old and new employers are both corrupt. Abascal plays Marta with a combination of innocent eroticism and femme fatale calculation. Apart from a tendency toward film noir cliches, pic is visually interesting, pointing up the fact that all this corruption and death takes place against a paradisiacal rural background. Dramatic score is efficient.