A wonderful, terrible, masterpiece! Antonio Grasset. DIAS DE CINE (TVE)

The intensity of the emotions suggested reaches immense heights. E. Rodríguez Marchante. ABC

A silent, disturbing film..... Pons demonstrates his glorious shamelessness when it comes to speaking of the emotions. M. Torreiro. EL PAIS

Ventura Pons demonstrates once again that he is an excellent director of actors and that, as a film-maker, he knows that he knows what he knows, something Confucius considered to be the essence of true wisdom. Sergi Sánchez. LA RAZON

A magnificent story filmed with a concise style... The virtue of Pons¹ work lies in making the complex undercurrent of relationships so very epidermic.... Quim Casas EL PERIODOCO DE CATALUNYA

³Amic/Amat² is Ventura Pons¹ best film and one of the most beautiful and adult in Spanish cinema. Don¹t miss it. Marcos Ordoñez. FOTOGRAMAS

It is not a story of generations, but something more abstract and absolute, that achieves great dramatic intensity. Ventura Pons continues to advance along a unique path in our cinema, demonstrating that the concept of literary adaptation is not at odds with modernity. Antonio Weinrichter. CINEMANIA

Pons not only understands his characters and their weaknesses, he also bathes them in a huge ocean of affection. The adjective superb falls short in describing the cast of Amic/Amat. Jordi Batlle Caminal. GUIA DEL OCIO (Barcelona)

Five brilliant actors for a great film... Ventura Pons situates himself amongst the best directors of our cinema. Fernando Méndez-Leite. GUIA DEL OCIO (Madrid)

Ventura Pons is a film-maker in a state of grace... he has constructed a modern yet timeless, courageous, shameless, moving picture.... A. Bermejo. EL MUNDO

One's attention is powerfully drawn to the fact that a Spanish director has been able, in these hard times for creative freedom, to turn full circle in his path and find a way of making a marvellous film, the real thing, every year... What it's all about, Actresses, Caresses and now Beloved/Friend are the result of this process of moral cleansing, of intimate honesty and coherence, that Ventura Pons has undertaken offhandedly, situating himself amongst the best directors of our cinema.

Pons returns to a theatrical text by Benet i Jornet, which the playwright has rewritten with the director to be transposed into images, adding two female characters to the three male leads of the play, without the rejuvenated original losing either sense or intention. Once again we have before us a story of emotions and ideas, in which are mixed harshly, yet with supreme elegance and with an extreme love of the language -go on and see it in Catalan, it won't do you any harm- universal themes like the feeling of love, the proximity of death, physical decadence, the passage of time, the search in the present for meaning in the events of the past, paternity, ambition, the self-deceit that acts as a crutch for survival, the true meaning of sex, the affection gained by time which masks the absence of love, transcendence, the remote possibility of inheritance in its most basic sense, and a long list of etceteras.

Because Beloved/Friend, you'll already have been warned, is a dense film, with few transitions, it's true, of great beauty and concision, which doesn't waste time and always gets straight to the point. A sad, serene, lucid, and, too, risky film, because it dares to play with the importance, even the exaggeration, of fate, of coincidences, of the accumulation of significant events in a brief interval of time. It's as if we were at the theatre, precisely because we are in the theatre, as Ventura Pons is determined to retain the theatrical essence within a purely cinematographic texture, without renouncing any of the scenic characteristics of a text that has its origin in theatrical technique. It goes without saying that he achieves it.

Beloved/Friend is planned out with extraordinary good taste and functionality, giving each his due. That's to say, granting prominence to his five actors -six, with the brief appearance of Jordi Dauder-, aware as they are that it is they who are living out the script, they who give veracity and life to the very rich characters who have flowed from Benet i Jornet's pen. Josep Maria Pou, that great actor we've been admiring for almost thirty years -ah, those Three sisters by José Luis Alonso!- and whose marvellous characterisations in La hora de los valientes and Los años bárbaros have still not been enough for us to nominate him this year for the Goyas - one of the most flagrantly forgotten figures in the history of these awards -, carries all the weight of this admirable film. He is simply immense. His work is incredibly rich, adding subtle nuance to each gaze, each change of position, each gesture. Rosa Maria Sardà, Mario Gas, Irene Montalà and David Selvas make it easy for him because they respond on his own level. Five brilliant actors for a great film.

With a rhythm of production (once a year) reminiscent of Woody Allen, Ventura Pons seems to be growing, in depth and narrative ability, with each new work he supplies. After Caresses, based on a play by Sergi Belbel, the Catalan director returns to Benet i Jornet, whom he adapted earlier with outstanding results in Actresses, to my taste his best film.... until Beloved/Friend. Like Actresses, Beloved/Friend is a story on the subject of inheritance. After a long time abroad, a professor of literature (Josep Maria Pou), returns to Barcelona to die, victim of a terminal illness. The professor has been deeply in love twice in his life: the first time, in his youth, with a fellow university friend (Mario Gas), now married with a daughter, and the second, with a student (David Selvas) of exceptional talent, but violent and savagely nihilistic, whom the teacher wants to save, turning him into a kind of spiritual heir. As he will soon discover, the youth: 1) makes his living as a male prostitute; 2) has got his friend's daughter pregnant, and 3) has less desire to be saved than Jodie Foster in Taxi Driver.

To the original, eminently masculine plot of Testament, the piece on which Beloved/Friend is based, Benet i Jornet, who wrote the script, has added a second, centering on the characters of the mother (Rosa Maria Sardà) and the daughter (Irene Montalà), which admirably complements the melodrama of fathers and sons (or, to paraphrase Lawrence, Sons and lovers) and develops the suggestive theme of life by proxy: the ageing mother who wants to go on living through her daughter's youth.

The dense and unusually intense (for these times) narrative rhythm, causes one to overlook the convention of the string of coincidences upon which the story is held together: a planning free of useless ornaments, an emotive sound track by Carles Cases (in the symphonic style of Georges Delerue in L'important c'est d'aimer, another possible title for this film) and, above all, a quintet of superlative performances make Beloved/Friend Ventura Pons' best film and one of the most beautiful and adult in Spanish cinema.

The two trump cards of Beloved/Friend are, indisputably, that team of giants of the stage formed by Josep Maria Pou and Rosa Maria Sardà. Pou, in the role of the mature homosexual trying desperately to hold on to life, is awesome, almost a cross between Erland Josephson and Philippe Noiret: too long squandered, cinematographically, on supporting roles, Pou's work is a recuperation in the grand style, that could earn him the whole of the year's awards, equalled in voltage by Rosa Maria Sardà, equally immense as she holds back all her pain under a layer of constant joviality. Mario Gas, in his return to the screen, plays with absolute exactitude the difficult role of a man whose world is blown sky high in a matter of hours. Finally, in the department of shattering confirmations shine the ferocity of David Selvas and the sincerity of Irene Montalà. Don't miss it.

"Shot through with the same emotional intensity as his last but with a more accessible structure.

Pons "commitment to the spiritually gruelling and his explorations of the darker sides of sexuality make the maverick Catalan language auteur a valuable directorial presence in Spain".

"His recent work has fared better in offshore arthouses, this one should be no exception".

"Given the quasi Freudian material and the challenge of exploring the five characters psychosexual network, the script is surprisingly deft and all performances do it justice".

E.R. How do you decide which, when and how you will adapt any one of the works of contemporary Catalan literature that disprove that in our country there are no stories suitable for the screen?

V.P. Contemporary Catalan literature is a bottomless well of writers and stories that are fantastic for adaptation to film. The problem is that there are some you can't touch because they're too expensive and, unfortunately, everything has to be brought down to market terms. Ours is so frail that it doesn't allow for huge investments, but, on the other hand, it does allow for films of the dimensions I work with. Before going ahead with a story, I have to like it, I have to be mad about it, and besides that I have to consider whether it's suitable for cinema. Lastly, I need the actors who'll be up front, and all this contributes to making the final decision.

E.R. I suppose that to make Beloved/Friend you must have thought about Testament, the play by Benet i Jornet, but the script he's written for you is a real gift...

V.P. I think it's a script written in a state of grace on the part of an author who's a luxury for our culture and any culture of the western world. If Benet i Jornet were English or French he'd be receiving far more international promotion.

E.R. The film has the additional difficulty of transposing grand concepts to an every-day dimension.

V.P. There's death, friendship, but above all there's the theme of transcendency. The film asks if we, as a generation, will be capable of influencing those that come after us in order that the world be a better place. Whoever wants to, can keep to the superficial part of the story but for me, at this moment in my life, I've really enjoyed getting into this deeper aspect. The story is very rich, has some fantastic characters and Carles Cases' music is beautiful, but, having been able to speak about all this, from my position of freedom and independence, is a privilege.

E.R. You say this in an almost testamentary tone....

V.P. I wouldn't want you to take what I say literally! I know I'm driven to get involved in projects that are unique and I want the public to see I make films that deal with the conflict of ideas.

E.R. Earlier you spoke of Benet i Jornet's state of grace, but the actors also seem to be graced with some special gift. What do you put this down to?

V.P. There are a number of factors. On one hand, they received a good script with fantastic characters at an excellent moment professionally, and they integrate perfectly into the project. But apart from this, my background is in theatre, I love working with actors and I've had a wonderful time shooting this film. I suppose all that comes out in the film.

E.R. Josep M. Pou, David Selvas and Rosa Maria Sardà are actors our public know, basically, through their work in television. How do you think the audience will react to a film which proposes another type of discourse?

V.P. I make my films for the audience, and a film is always like a melon to be cut open. The first reactions I've received have been very positive and I think the public will respond because it's a film that speaks of the emotions.

E.R. You've spent the year travelling from one festival to another with Caresses and now, after the release of Beloved/Friend in our country, they're already waiting on it for a retrospective at the ICA in London. How do you feel about all this?

V.P. To have everyone calling for you from all over the world, wanting to give you attention, is like a fairy tale.

E.R. What does it mean to you to return to Berlin with Beloved/Friend?

V.P. I can do nothing but give thanks once again, and if Beloved/Friend has even half the repercussion of Caresses I'll be more than happy. Apart from that, I'm keen to show Berlin I'm capable of moving from one style to another with films that, despite being very close to each other, are also very different. This last one is much more serene and lets you get much deeper into the dramatic conflict the characters are experiencing.

E.R. Will your having been elected vice president of the Spanish Academy of Cinematography have an influence on the rhythm you've accustomed us to of a film a year?

V.P. I hope I can manage to combine the two things.

E.R. Does that mean you already have the 1999 season planned out?

V.P. Yes, but I won't go into that. It's bad luck to talk about projects ahead of time. But, on second thoughts, I might have to slow down for a year and enjoy everything that's happening to me.

In exploring the notion of personal legacy, the longing to bequeath something lasting after death, Ventura Pons's impassioned movie Amic/Amat (Beloved/Friend) goes where no film has gone before.

...Amic/Amat has scorching performances by Josep Maria Pou as the professor and David Selvas as the hustler...

...the Catalan director is one oif the leading lights of the contemporary Spanish cinema. This mini-retrospective of Mr. Pons's work should help dispel the notion that Spanish cinema begins and ends with Pedro Almodóvar.