Gipsy King (Spanish: Rey gitano ) is a 2015 Spanish comedy road movie written and directed by Juanma Bajo Ulloa . The cast features Manuel Manquiña , Karra Elejalde , Arturo Valls , María León , Rosa María Sardá , Charo López , Pilar Bardem and Albert Pla .
8-622: Two failed and unemployed investigators, Primitivo and Jose Mari (caricatures of the so-called Two Spains ), meet up with Gaje, a gypsy scoundrel, pretending to be a bastard son of the King of Spain . They travel throughout Spain to fulfill the mission tasked by Gaje, set on becoming king. The film is a RH Cinema and Frágil Zinema production. Shooting began in July 2014 in Vitoria-Gasteiz and surrounding locations of Álava , moving then to Madrid , wrapping in
16-548: A "stupendous" writing by Bajo Ulloa), "almost nothing works", due to the lack of genius and—boldness notwithstanding—for being "much less audacious than it appears on the surface". M.J. Lombardo of Diario de Sevilla noted that while the plot premise could be somewhat amusing and that bringing in a duo of investigators performed by Manquiña and Elejalde was not a bad idea, "almost nothing else works organically in this redundant and cumulative road movie". The two Spains The two Spains ( Spanish : las dos Españas )
24-593: Is a phrase from a short poem by Spanish poet Antonio Machado . The phrase, referring to the left-right political divisions that later led to the Spanish Civil War , originated in a short, untitled poem, number LIII of his Proverbios y Cantares ( Proverbs and Songs ). Antonio Machado himself is an example of this split. While he wrote a poem to honor the Communist General Enrique Líster , his brother Manuel Machado dedicated another poem to
32-469: The province of Málaga (including Málaga and Genalguacil ) already by September 2014. Distributed by eOne Films Spain, Gipsy King was theatrically released in Spain on 17 July 2015. Pere Vall of Fotogramas gave a 2 out of 5 stars score, pointing out at an editing full of loopholes, a clutter of badly executed climaxes, overacted performances, otherwise drawing out Arturo Valls' performance from those by
40-532: The idea through the Biblical story of Jacob and Esau struggling for dominance in their mother's womb, as in the article "Rebeca" (1914), which may pre-date Machado's quatrain. But historians trace the idea still further back, to the 17th and 18th centuries and the formation of the Spanish character. Historian Charles J. Esdaile describes Machado's "two Spains" as "the one clerical , absolutist and reactionary , and
48-449: The other secular , constitutional and progressive," but views this picture of the first Spain as "far too simplistic", in that it lumps the enlightened absolutism of the 18th century Bourbon monarchs with the reactionary politics that simply wanted to restore the "untrammeled enjoyment" of the privileges of the Church and aristocracy. In addition, he states that the populacho —the mass of
56-413: The rest of the cast as a positive point. Carlos Marañón of Cinemanía rated the film 3½ out of 5 stars, writing about the "supreme" performances by Elejalde and Manquiña, nailing what is expected of them, "perverting idioms to the point of paroxysm". Javier Ocaña of El País considered the film's problem to be that, except for the sequences featuring Karra Elejalde and Manuel Manquiña (uplifted by
64-414: The saber of the rebel Generalissimo Francisco Franco . The idea of a divided Spain, each half antagonistic to the other half, dates back at least to 19th-century Spanish satirist Mariano José de Larra , who, in his article " All Souls' Day 1836" ["Día de difuntos de 1836"] wrote "Here lies half of Spain. It died of the other half." Later, philosopher Miguel de Unamuno , Machado's contemporary, developed
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