A peculiar movie. It's not for people squeamish about sexuality, because it contains some rather odd sexual content. There's also a rather graphic scene where she delivers her own son and rips the umbilical cord with her own teeth, which was a little gross to me.The subject of the movie is Queen Juana, daughter of Isabella I and Ferdinand II, who inherits the thrones of Castile and Aragon from her parents.
Prior to this, she is married off to Philip the Handsome of Flanders, and falls obsessively in love with him. Much of the movie is devoted to her alternately desiring Philip and becoming furious over his adulterous behavior, often at the same time -as in hitting him and screaming at him before demanding he take her right then and there on the floor.
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| Portrait of the real Queen Juana. |
Of course, being in love and feeling jealous aren't grounds to condemn someone as crazy, but these feelings consumed her to the point that she no longer seemed concerned with the ruling the country. She couldn't even pull herself together when the nobles came to warn her that Philip was trying to seize power, as she was too busy trying to figure out which of her ladies was his new mistress. When she finally does stand up for her rights, she makes an impressive show of her popularity with the people, but it was too little too late. Regardless of whether or not she was crazy, she certainly didn't seem fit to run a country.
I thought the actress, Pilar Lopez de Ayala, did a good job. The actor that portrayed Philip didn't bring much to the character. He looks like he fell off the cover of a romance novel and has the depth of a puddle -but perhaps that's how Philip really was. He was called "The Handome," not "The Interesting."
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| Portrait of the real Philip I of Castile. |
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