Well Deserved Praise

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

Known film that had big success at Spanish box office with interesting and hard screenplay by director himself and based on a novel by José Ángel Mañas . This film concerns about a riveting journey through the lives of youth , including dramatic deeds , emotions , romances and strong sex scenes , both marked by crude sexuality and eroticism . Good-looking Carlos (Juan Diego Botto) is a troubled young student , a bad guy at just 21 , who lives with a wealthy family (parents : Josep Maria Pou , Mercedes San Pietro) . Nice or annoying as he likes , he is a rebel with no cause who always lives on the edge . By night he goes out to meet his friends (Jordi Mollá , Aitor Merino , Armando del Río) in the Kronen , a bar , they get together and find a common ground . And to enjoy Discoteques and Rock concerts . His reckless life is reduced to sex , drugs and rock an roll . Enjoying on the verge and every situation can be taken a little farther . And more each time , each risked activity is chained to the next, as if it were a continuous night . And , among that , the obscure will of living every minute as if it were the last one . As all the leads met with a tragic ending . This is an intense as well as dramatic story dealing with youngsters , being well directed by Montxo Armendariz , including his own script , who tries to create an engaging flick plenty of movement and metaphor by tackling a description about a particular and dysfunctional group led by Carlos/Juan Diego Botto and formed by Madrid youthful of the nineties . But especially focusing the relationship between Carlos/Juan Diego Botto and Roberto/Jordi Mollà who is really infatuated for him . They live without scruples and without sentimentality , but something which happens puts Carlos and his friends against a reality they have been attempting to ignore . This is a thought-provoking and deep portrayal starred by the newcomer Juan Diego Botto who gives an acceptable acting as the rebel young who enjoys provoking and transgreding , in which his existence has not limits , no accepted barriers . Botto is a young but veteran actor who has got a lot of hits such as "Martin Hache" , "Roma", ¨The dancer upstairs¨ , ¨Fiesta Del Chivo¨ , ¨Silencio En La Nieve¨ and many others . There are also a long description of varied people : grandfather : André Falcon , parents : José Maria Pou , Mercedes Sampietro , sister : Cayetana Guillén Cuervo , girlfriends : Nuria Prims , Pilar Castro , and friends . This "Stories from the Kronen" delivers a large homage to the famous film ¨Henry , portrait of a killer¨ by John McNaughton , a notorious thriller to whom Director pays a real tribute . The motion picture was well directed Montxo Armendáriz who wrote the screenplay along with José Ángel Mañas (novel's author) . It won several prizes and nominations . As Cannes Film Festival 1995 Nominated Palme d'Or Montxo Armendáriz ; Cinema Writers Circle Awards, Spain 1996 Won CEC Award Best Screenplay Adapted to Montxo Armendáriz , José Ángel Mañas ; Goya Awards 1996 Won Goya Best Adapted Screenplay and Nominated Goya Best New Actor Juan Diego Botto ; Spanish Actors Union 1996 Nominated Newcomer Award Juan Diego Botto . Splendid , luxurious photography with juicy atmosphere by Alfredo Mayo who subsequently would make a prestigious career as cameraman . The picture perfectly produced by the magnificent producer Elias Querejeta was professionally made by Montxo who is a well recognized filmmaker both nationally and internationally , and in proof of it he won many prizes in several Festivals . Montxo Armendáriz was born in Navarra, and his films are mostly set in this Spanish region . He is a smart writer and director , expert on dramas , being especially known for Tasio (1984) one of Armendariz's undisputed masterpieces and fundamental in his filmography where shows efficiently an attractive story and shot at the height of his creativity , 27 hours (1986) , Cartas a Alou (1990) , Silencio Roto or Broken silence (2001) Obaba (2005), and No Tengas Miedo (2011) . And especially Secretos del Corazón (1997), a sensational film that dispenses a brooding plot and considered to be one of the best Spanish films of the 90s , in fact was voted one of the best pictures by professionals and critics .

10 years ago young men and women were like that. It's more a documentary than a fiction. I remember my brother coming home at 6 or 7 in the morning and sleeping through the day . The story is about a group of upper-class young people in their early twenties. As most in Spain and Italy, they still live at home with their parents. One of them works, all of the others are students. The main character, Carlos, is a good student, but out of school he changes into a jerk. He does not respect his family, except for his grandparent, he teases his friends, does not believe in anything but having fun right away. I guess,however, his behavior is mask to hide feelings. Carlos hides his sadness. When he is extremely sad he cries in his room alone, but when others are around him he turns his usual tough self and almost jokes about the event that made him sad. The actor, however, did a great job in putting the sadness into his eyes. Everyone can see that though he speaks hard, Carlo's eyes are filled with anguish. He is afraid to show his feeling, he is afraid of feelings, and tries to brush them away speeding the nights through discos, pubs, drugs, and sex, with his group of friends.At the end the strongest one is the one who realizes something is wrong and, who knows, is ready for a change. What added to the sense of lost is the dark. Most of the shows is about night life, but even the scenes taken during the day are kind of dark, grim. I watched this film because it starred Juan Diego Botto, an actor I had a crush on when I was about 10-11 and he acted as Felipe in Zorro. I must say he has grown-up well. As I said before, his portrait of Carlos is great. He can act he is obnoxious while his eyes show fear, anger, sadness, and guilt.

If you have read the book Historias del Kronen and then you watch the movie, it usually happens that the book turns out to be better than the film itself. Well, in this case is also true. Juan Diego Botto became very popular by taking the role of the main character, a teenager who looks at the obscure as if it was part of him. He and his friends search night after night for anything that can bring them excitement to their lives (this is supposed to be a generation that has not yet contributed to write a single page in Spain's contemporary history due to their passive behavior, which is originated through the fulfillment of previous generations, e.g. their parents who lead Spain free after dictatorship towards democracy and liberation). The extreme situations that occur in this movie are always intentioned by this attitude, but at the end of the movie something odd happens, leaving the spectator with serious doubts about the behavior of this type of people. Is there something wrong with young generations in Spain? Or is it just the way it is supposed to be?

Montxo Armendáriz has done much better work than this rendition to clichè in films about young lost teenagers. Historias del Kronen is a boring tour de force throughout the lives of a bunch of kids living it hard and loud in the spanish capital, Madrid. If you are into watching a dramatized european version of the superiorly achieved Kids but with higher classed boys and girls prancing around an importantly less developed script, you will surely like this. You will get your share of drugs, sex, stupidly rebellious behaviour, closeted gay characters; you will get your hero, shy guy, wiseguy bla bla bla. There are no plot twists whatsoever, you know from the beginning what we are supposed to think is wrong and right, and who is good and who is bad. You just patiently wait for the death sequence that is also supposed to turn into deep audience introspection about the miscarried youth of the 90's. Mr.Armendáriz might even think he has shocked you and made you see in a realistic way how the young unadapted mind mechanizes its own self destruction. After 15 minutes you just have to wait for the film to crash on its own pieces. You feel the pretentions in every dialogue and you can't but remember the mass quantities of times you have seen the same situations been caught in film and with much better results.