My Way (Jose Antonio Salgot, 2008): Spain

This film spoke to all those who have a family member with alzheimer’s. The director of My Way, Jose Antonio Salgot has captured a dysfunctional family that has been corrupted by drugs, money, death, and brutality yet still come together even though most of the time they don’t understand one another. My Way was developed in Barcelona, Spain and had a talented cast, I believe this is there first film festival.

I didn’t really connect with the storyline but, I did find certain scenes that really jumped out at me. The writers: Jamie Ballado, Angeles Diemant-Hartz, Gerard Gil; developed a story of a small time drug dealer burnt out of his own game. Marco(Ariel Casas): The Father, Husband, Grandson, Small-time drug dealer, shows many sides him since he has so many roles in this film. The daughter of Marco(Susana Fawaz) as known as the artistic photographer, has seen brutality amongst her peers and has been questioned about her involvement with a hate crime by the police. The wife of Marco (Silvia Marso)copes between her work assignment and her family. The Grandfather(Joan Dalmau) has to deal with old age and his sickness with alzheimer’s, his son as his caretaker, as well as the lose of his wife, Dolores(Asuncion Balaguer).

As the story develops, the performances by the cast of actors are brilliant. The music done by Joan Miquel Oliver is perfect for this drama. The cinematography created by Oriol Villa took on melancholy imagry to intensity, especially in the scene of Marco’s daughter and the horrific hate crime. The editing done by Irene Blecua was well thought out and had really combined the emotional roller-coaster with transitions of appropriate music segments.

This film had all the elements of a great film and created a sense of unstability that every one can connect with on some level. I took this film for what it was and how relationships within our own lives can easily be flipped into different roles due to ceretain circumstances, such as the father and son relationship between Marco and his own Father.