| | | No Taboo Goes Unbroken.
Features: DVD, Widescreen, English, Subtitled
From acclaimed director Joaquin Oristrell comes a Spanish comedy of wickedly Freudian proportions. Set in Barcelona in the early 1900s, Unconscious is a taboo-breaking romp that follows the beautiful and very pregnant Alma (Leonar Watling, Talk to Her) as she searches for her missing psychiatrist husband. Along the way she recruits her love-struck brother-in-law Salvador (Luis Tosar) and discovers a world where gender bending psychoanalysis turns the roles of sex and sexuality inside out. This spicy comedy is a couch trip that will leave any patient completely unrepressed!
"...everything is beautifully designed and photographed, Watling and Tosar are superb and it's undeniably great fun." Patrick Peters, Empire
"...[this] delirious bedroom farce in the spirit of early Pedro Almodovar is frequently very funny." Stephen Holden, The New York Times
"A brilliant exploration into the implications of Freud's theories on one family." Stina Chyn, Film Threat
Editor's Note
Joaquín Oristrell's UNCONSCIOUS is a a very funny romantic farce set in the supposedly austere psychiatric society of 1913 Barcelona. León Pardo (Alex Brendemühl) is a psychiatrist who suddenly disappears, telling his devoted pregnant wife, Alma (Leonor Watling), not to look for him. Worried for her husband's life, Alma enlists the help of her very serious brother-in-law, Salvador (Luis Tosar), another psychiatrist, to discover what is going on and to find León. Meanwhile, Alma's father, Dr. Mira (Juanjo Puigcorbé), one of the leading psychiatrists in Barcelona, is awaiting the arrival of Sigmund Freud, who is scheduled to speak at a special conference. Despite Salvador's protestations, Alma--whose sister, Olivia (Núria Prims), is married to Salvador--leads him on a dangerous adventure filled with sex, lies, violence, deception, and Marxist philosophy. Alma and Salvador make a fabulous team, part Nick and Nora Charles, part Sherlock Holmes and Watson; Watling, a veteran of several Pedro Almodóvar films, is particularly engaging in the lead role, and Tosar as Salvador--with his hysterical facial hair--is a hoot the whole way through. Mercedes Sampietro adds to the humor as the Pardos's villainous housekeeper. Oristrell balances the seriousness with the farfetched in this old-fashioned romp, cowritten with Teresa de Pelegrí and Dominic Harari, the couple who directed and penned the nonstop comedy ONLY HUMAN. The period piece is enhanced by frames that kick off each new chapter, as well as by the great soundtrack by Sergio Moure.
| Features | Audio: Spanish Dolby Digital Stereo | | Behind The Scenes Photo Gallery | | DVD-ROM Feature: Sigmund Freud Weblinks | | Interactive Menus | | Interview With World Famous Psychologist, Edward Shafranske, Ph.D. | | Scene Selection | | Subtitles: English |
| Technical Info
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Release Information
| | Studio: GENIUS PRODUCTS |
| Release Date: 7/24/2007 |
| Running Time: 109 minutes |
| Original Release Date: 2007 | | Catalog ID: 80027 | | UPC: 00796019800273 | | Number of Discs: 1 |
Audio & Video
| | Video: Color |
Aspect Ratio | | Anamorphic Widescreen 1.85:1 |
| Cast & Crew
| Awards |
Nominee (2005) | | | Sundance Film Festival, Joaquin Oristrell, Grand Jury Prize - World Cinema - Dramatic |
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| | Professional Reviews | Total Film
3 stars out of 5 -- "A breathless, vibrant sex comedy, UNCONSCIOUS puts the farce into Freud....It's hysterical..." 10/01/2006 p.38Sight and Sound
"The Barcelona locations are gorgeous, with interiors and exteriors in the ornate style known as modernisme....With just enough glamour and humour to satisfy European heritage aficionados." 10/01/2006 p.83 New York Times
"[I]ts fusion of a Sherlock Holmes-style detective story with a delirious bedroom farce in the spirit of early Pedro Almodovar is frequently very funny." 02/09/2007 p.E18 BBC Online 8 of 10
Inconscientes (Unconscious) is a distinctive, quirky comedy, which caused a stir at last year's Sundance Film Festival and is finally getting a limited UK release. Set in Barcelona in 1913, against a modernist backdrop of Sigmund Freud's theories and Gaudi's architecture, the well-structured, multi-layered script - part mystery, part romance - is bolstered by a great cast, with genuine on-screen chemistry...A heavily pregnant Alma (Leonor Watling) returns home one day to find her eminent psychiatrist husband Dr Leon Pardo (Alex Brendemuhl) in tears and about to flee their home and his practice. Left to have their baby alone, she enlists the help of her admiring brother-in-law Salvador (Luis Tosar) and sets about uncovering the elaborate mystery of Leon's sudden departure...With both feet firmly rooted in high farce, many of the comic situations and characters are deliberately OTT. Watling's portrayal of the neurotic firebrand Alma and Tosar's bumbling, love-struck Salvador are a joy to watch together, while Mercedes Sampietro shines as the drunken housekeeper. Despite only appearing in the last act, Brendemuhl threatens to steal the show with a hilarious final monologue. A well-observed, sideways portrait of the day, Unconscious is a little gem. - Digby Lewis
Slant Magazine 5 of 10
Joaquin Oristrell's Unconscious might have been called Sleuthing in the Time of Psychoanalysis. Hardly a fun title but neither is this Spanish confection, whose rabid-animal disposition is bound to please suckers for those calculatedly bouncy and cloying foreign imports that have become all the rage since Amelie. Like Love Me If You Dare, the film is so opulently and noisily aestheticized it gives the illusion of being smarter than it is, though it benefits from some endearing performances. Set in 1913 Barcelona against a horny backdrop of Freudian chitter-chatter, the story is something of Three's Company fan's fantasy of a Sherlock Holmes mystery, with Pedro Almodovar alum Leonor Watling as a very-pregnant and unusually liberated woman who goes hunting for her missing husband with the help of her brother-in-law, played by Luis Tosar. No taboo, from incest to homosexuality, is beneath Oristrell's radar as Watling and Tosar's cartoon trail of breadcrumbs leads them to a head-spinning meeting with Freud at a luxe manse. The film's humor is such that Tosar, in one scene, recoils in horror when he learns he's holding a small statue of a goddess of fertility and, in another, pulls out his ostensibly crooked cock during dinner and a waiter reflects that disproportion is the base of beauty. Alas, the film's desperation is not. - Ed Gonzalez
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