The Spanish film, The Blind Sunflowers, was chosen to participate in the international competition of the 32nd Cairo International Film Festival. Allow me to point out at a few things before reviewing this master piece. I knew about this film from the official website of the festival, I noticed that it was participating in the international competition and it's showtime was convenient to me, so I thought I should watch it. I booked my seat and got my ticket -which was was well designed by the way-, everything went smoothly and better than I expected. The film started on time and sadly enough almost half of the seats were empty.
The film is about a middle aged woman named Elena who has a teenage daughter named Helenita that runs away with her boyfriend in an attempt to reach the united states of America to fulfill their dreams. Helena's son Lorenzo is a young kid who is tutored by a deacon who considers leaving priesthood. The deacon -Salvador- falls in love with Helena who he thinks is a widow, but the truth is that her husband is still alive and is hiding from the Spanish authorities. What really was interesting about this film is the struggle of the deacon between satisfying god and feeding his sexual desires. All of the actors and actresses were convincing, especially Maribel Verdú and Raúl Arévalo who played the roles of Helena and Salvador respectively, they both managed to show a lot of emotions on camera which really helped in reinforcing the film's drama.
The film is based on a well known spanish novel of the same name and despite the well written screenplay, I believe the movie still lacks some elements that would make it apeal to the mainstream audience, but for all world war freaks I think you should like this one.
