Fat People (Gordos)
About Film
Session Times
Saturday 10 April 6:15pm
REVIEWS
The script shuttles rapidly among the various stories. What we get is a mix of satire (though often enjoyable), absurd comedy and even teen drama. The script's knowing tone makes its humor clever. A daring, refreshingly fleshy take on society's obsession with appearances, Gordos juggles characters, genres and ideas. It retains enough distinctive style and wit for offshore audiences to want a bite.
VARIETY
Jonathan Holland
Sánchez Arévalo has understood how to present an array of problematic situations, common in the day-to-day life of modern society, with a bittersweet tone of comedy and drama, without exaggeration, with narrative ability and, above all, supported by an extraordinary group of actors [including] Antonio de la Torre (who gained and lost 33 kilos).Daniel is leaving his personal mark on the Spanish cinema of our times.
IMÁGENES DE ACTUALIDAD
Ruiz de Villalobos
No-one could deny that [Sánchez Arévalo] is daring, stylish and risky. In Gordos there are a lot of things that we never see in Spanish films. For example, a host of characters full of contradictions. By not speaking of that social taboo that is being fat, here is an excuse to talk about other things. Always walking the fine line between diagnosis and ridicule, but without ever falling into it. Sánchez Arévalo has composed a complex film, written in a luminous way, with continuous ruptures in the narrative thread, but without ever losing the trajectory of his characters. Gordos is the best reflection on self pity and lies that has appeared in a long time.
FOTOGRAMAS
Mirito Torreiro
A film about how to take on the proper condition (physical, personal, employment, affective) that develops with a tone that is comic sprinkled with dramatic moments The result is daring. Antonio de la Torre is capable of following the teachings of Robert De Niro to involve himself completely in the changing physique of his character.
EL PERIODICO
Quim Casas
There is precious attention to detail in the directing. This latest offering from Sánchez Arévalo has as a very clear fountain of formal and structural inspiration the immense Magnolia: in the mise-en-scene, in the montage, in the use of the music, in the presence of a home-shopping guru who guides the story. In Gordos there is a narrative discontinuity that leads its narrator to recount with complexity, spirit, grace and uneasiness multifaceted stories. Antonio de la Torre is immense in his physical sacrifice.
EL PAIS
Javier Ocaña
A variegated and luxurious script, with moments of incontestable ingenuity and an inordinate tendency for all kinds of excess, but also a heterogeneous tendency, a tendency for strident moments, variety in tone and register, from realist comedy to caricaturist parody, and a series of moments destined to make clear the virtuoso exhibitionist that is this film.
EL MUNDO METROPOLI
Alberto Bermejo
Sánchez Arévalo opts to explain his discourse, blurring, in a way, the characters, who come to appear as authentic abstractions. He is a director whose areas of interest have not yet been outlined. We should be attentive to his future projects.
DIRIGIDO POR
Raúl Acín
The best of Dark Blue Almost Black (Azul Oscuro casi Negro) is also present in Gordos: in the meticulous writing, in the sensitivity, in the very human touch in these stories. Sánchez Arévalo again offers the exact measure of humour, dramatisation and cotumbrismo.
CINEMANIA
Carlos Marañón
An extremely complex film to make. The difficulty of Gordos does not only consist of assembling the humour of form with the terrible nature of the setting, but to harmonize various characters, to stitch together various stories with difficulty, and to ensure it acquires a unique tone. The result is extremely complex and intense and Gordos wrings itself out as much as it does the spectator. The fusion and confusion of drama and comedy, afflicted hilarity or its opposite, are perhaps no more than the measure of Sánchez Arévalo’s style.
ABC
E. Rodríguez Marchante
That apparent lack of style, or, better said, that restricted use of stylistic devices, does not mean a piece without personality. On the contrary, it generates a new factor of risk in a film where everything seems to exceed the limit and, yet, it results in something strangely familiar.
CAHIERS DU CINEMA
Fernando Bernal
The situations at times border on the grotesque and in others everything becomes disquieting or moving. An unusual but also disturbing film, a rarity with a strange charm, with a tone closer to morose than humoristic and an unwonted lyricism, with highs and lows. It is still running round my head. That’s a good sign.
EL PAIS
Carlos Boyero
This film has been followed with interest. The respect and affection for the characters are palpable and because of that the humour is generally dignified and does not go for easy laughs with crude jokes. Arévalo prefers irony to gags. Such acuteness and elegance should be maintained in future projects.
CINE PARA LEER
Ángel A. Pérez Gómez
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