Concha Leza
Francisco Goya (1746-1828), deaf and ill, lives the last years of his life in voluntary exile in Bordeaux, a Liberal protesting the oppressive rule of Ferdinand VII. He's living with his much younger wife Leocadia and their daughter Rosario. He continues to paint at night, and in flashbacks stirred by conversations with his daughter, by awful headaches, and by the befuddlement of age, he relives key times in his life.
Andrés's wealthy father-in-law runs a textile factory; he retires and brings Andrés to Madrid, with wife and son, to run the company. Andrés works long hours, but his wife is bored, and there are tensions at home. When Isabel, a femme fatale, spots Andrés at a party, he's easy prey - but soon, she might be falling for him, perhaps enough to dump her boyfriend Paco, a small-time cocaine dealer. What if Andrés falls for her? What would he sacrifice to have her? And what about his wife; will she fight to keep him?
Marco Vallez (Antonio Banderas) is possessed by the beauty of a circus sharp shooter, and from the second they meet he is willing to give up everything to be with her. But one horrifying night sends them both down a road of revenge leaving behind a trail of bodies to the ultimate showdown with justice.
Fifteen years after the plot a lawyer and a military ex-attorney meet and recall the intense days of 1975 when both participated in the decission of war or peace. The film is told in flashbacks of the two protagonists.
Pedro Jarrapellejos (Antonio Ferrandis) is a ladies man who cannot turn the heads of Isabel (Aitana Sanchez-Gijon) or her beautiful daughter. When both peasant women are found raped and murdered in a brutal scene, a schoolteacher is falsely accused. Pedro knows his own nephew and his friend participated in the killings, but he uses his considerable influence over the police and courts to intimidate the witnesses into silence.
Cesar and Isabel just got married for the Jewish rite, their religion. He is a director of a banking company. She works in a bookstore owned by her mother-in-law. The couple sees their happiness truncated when César discovers financial anomalies in the entity where he works. What were initially charges against some managers, becomes an accusation of embezzlement against César, who is in France to prevent his entry into military service. Go back and appear before the judge to prove his innocence.
Ignacio Costa is a tyrannical businessman with a conflictive personal life. He has a large family, a woman he abuses and humiliates and five children with whom he does the same, except for Mariana one of the girls. Tired of so many vexations, his wife will begin to influence his children until together they will plot the murder of the father
The plot follows a private detective, an ex communist and former CIA agent, who travels from Barcelona to Madrid to discover the identity of the assassin of the leader of the Spanish Communist party who was stabbed during a blackout while presiding over a meeting of the party's central committee. The film is a thriller with ironic political overtones.
In 1939, in a French prison camp, José Garcés of the defeated Spanish Republican army raises the spirits of his fellow prisoners by telling the story of the year he was 8 years old, 1911, in a small town in northeastern Spain. He was a rascal, baffling his father, always in trouble, and in love with Valentina, a neighbor girl. On his roof top at night he sends semaphore messages to her. He writes poems. He gets them into trouble, killing her father's breeding pigeons. When the two families camp at a decaying castle, his tutor, a sympathetic priest, tells him about the most valiant men, the saints, the heroes, and the poets. Already a poet, he learns a lesson about being a hero.
The film is an image of the Spanish society in form of various anecdotes which happen to the inhabitants and their neighbours of a finca in Madrid.
Pedro Liniers, a literature teacher, comes back to Madrid after his wife has just left him. Meanwhile, Aurora Villalba, came to Spain from Argentina, running away from the militaries, she has a special way of living her own way. Pedro wants to get back the job as a teacher through an old friend, Bruno Baena, who is the head master of the school. Aurora starts going to Pedro's classes. Pedro will become "El hombre de moda", very soon.
Berta (Tota Alba) has entered, once again, in prison accused of fraud. From the first moment she steps in the jail, she becomes the toy of all the veteran inmates. The number of conflicts in which she is immersed causes her to be transferred several times from penitentiary. In all of them will live some experience that will change her life; she will know love, hate, despair, etc.
Hecuba and the other women of Troy rise to find their city in ruins and their cause lost. The city has fallen into Greek hands and it is likely their lot to become slaves of Greek soldiers. A messenger approaches to inform them that the lots have been drawn and each woman will be taken to the man who drew for her. Of particular interest is Hecuba's daughter, Cassandra, who is chosen for the Greek kings bedchamber. She has received word of this news already and is in hiding because she has sworn an oath to the gods that she will live as a virgin. When she is found she has some particularly nasty things to say about treatment at Greek hands.
