Review of Jamon Jamon (1992) by Stephy M — 01 Dec 2011

Jamon Jamon was imagined, I suppose, as a serio-comic examination of that situation where one lets his basic sexual instincts take control over his entire being. What makes it bad is, I would say, two things: 1) every person in it shares these characteristic and, as a an expected consequence; 2) they all become extremely boring at about twenty minutes into the film.

This was the first pairing of future spouses: Javier Bardem who, with his above the waist outfit could be considered as a predecessor to male characters from Twilight and Penelope Cruz. She plays a poor young girl Sylvia, who gets pregnant by her rich boyfriend Hoze Luis. Now, I know the thought of an abortion proposition immediately came to your minds, but no! Hoze Luis actually turns out to be quite noble and wants to marry Sylvia. The problem is his lack of spine, as he is not capable to fully confront his obsessive mother (Stefania Sandrelli) who thinks her son could do much better. She hires Raul Gonzales (Bardem) to seduce Sylvia and separate her from Hoze Luis. That intention is short lived as the mother soon starts to feel attracted to Raul and wants him all to her self. If anyone has seen few telenovelas, this kind of plot is familiar.

Speaking of that, the whole movie, in writing, with its one-dimensional characters, is a soap opera material which had to be elevated by director Bigas Luna in some way. Apparently, the most creative way he could think of was to throw in great amount of nudity and sex scenes. Most of them are pointless because the whole film is like that, and they are not very sexy to begin with. During the one between Raul and Sylvia I honestly thought that her contractions started. After that experience, she needn't worry about giving birth. It couldn't possibly be as painful as that sounded.

Javier Bardem has proven him self as a terrific actor over the years, but this is the single most uninteresting character I have ever seen him play. The fact that his Raul gets all the ladies shows us that Luna doesn't have much respect for women in general. By that I mean mostly on Cruz character, who should be the most sympathetic person here, but the script just doesn't give her credit.

I honestly don't know what Luna was getting to with most of the stuff he threw in here. There are a few musical moments which suggest his desire for a certain kind of mood or emotion, but I wasn't able to name it because he didn't achieve it in the scenes, and couldn't feel it because I didn't feel sympathy for none of the characters.

When it was all over, I realized that Jamon Jamon didn't do anything for me. It didn't even change my perception about the possibilities of using a ham. If I ever find myself in a situation where protection of my integrity is necessary, I think I will rather choose more conventional, already proven weapons.