Elisa, My Life

On the heels of his award-winning Cria cuevos (Raise Ravens), Spanish filmmaker Carlos Saura dashed off the muted psychological drama Elisa, My Love. Geraldine Chaplin stars as Elisa, who after an absence of 20 years is reunited with her father, Fernando Rey (in a superb performance, which won him the Cannes Film Festival Best Actor prize ). Having just divested herself of an unhappy marriage, Elisa hopes to heal old, long-standing family wounds. Inasmuch as Saura thrives on exploring unspeakable subjects in his films, one can gather that the relationship between Elisa and her father may be far more complex than it seems at first. Elisa, Vida Mia was released in English-speaking countries as Elisa, My Love.~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide