Malena Is a Name from a Tango | |
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Spanish | Malena es un nombre de tango |
Directed by | Gerardo Herrero |
Screenplay by | Senel Paz |
Based on | Malena es un nombre de tango by Almudena Grandes |
Produced by |
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Starring |
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Cinematography | Alfredo Mayo |
Edited by | Carmen Frías |
Music by | Antoine Duhamel |
Production companies |
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Distributed by | Alta Films |
Release date |
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Countries |
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Language | Spanish |
Box office | 188 million ₧ (Spain)[1] |
Malena Is a Name from a Tango (Spanish: Malena es un nombre de tango) is a 1996 drama film directed by Gerardo Herrero from a screenplay by Senel Paz based on the novel by Almudena Grandes. It stars Ariadna Gil.
The plot concerns about the romantic and sexual endeavours of Malena, a victimised and rebellious woman contrasting to her twin sister Reina (who always was the model girl in the family), and then about the mother-son relationship of Malena with her son. Malena was gifted however a talisman by her grandfather back when she was 10.[2][3]
An adaptation of the novel by Almudena Grandes, the screenplay was penned by Senel Paz. It is a Spanish-French-German co-production by Alta Films, Tornasol Films, Blue Dahlia Production, La Sept Cinema, and Road Movies Produktionen.[8][3] Shooting locations included the San Julián estate (La Hoya , Lorca), Mula, Águilas, and Madrid.[9]
Distributed by Alta Films, the film was theatrically released in Spain on 12 April 1996.[8][5]
The film was the fifth highest grossing Spanish film of the year with a gross of 188 million Spanish Pesetas ($1.31 million).[1]
Jonathan Holland of Variety deemed the film to be a "well-intentioned, provocatively moralizing women's pic that ends up as second-rate melodrama".[3]
Luis Martínez of El País deemed that, efforts from a "magnetic" Ariadna Gil notwithstanding, the films "ends up as an uneven and quite chatty journey into the interiors of this disease called life".[10]