Most undeservingly overhyped movie of all time??

Brilliant and touching

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

I'm studying Catalan, and was delighted to find El Mar, a movie with mostly Catalan dialogue, at my art-house video store.Hmmm... not so delighted to have seen it.Yes, as other reviewers have said, it's well-made, and beautifully photographed. Although the opening sequence of the children is shockingly violent, it's well-acted and convincing. (For the most part, that is... Would the Mallorquins strip a corpse in preparation for burial right in the middle of the town square, in full view of the dead man's 10-year-old boy?) Oh, well... minor detail. Up to this point, it had something of the feel of a non-magical Pan's Labyrinth, also set in the Spanish Civil War.Fast-forward, and the three children who survived the opening incident have come of age. Francisca is a nun working at a tuberculosis sanatorium and the two boys, Manuel and Ramallo, both are patients. I know, but hey, coincidences happen.The problem, as with so many Spanish movies (apologies to Almodovar fans), is that with one exception (Francisca) the characters are just so dang *weird*. Their motivations, personalities, and dialogue are often simply incoherent.What's more, it descends into some horrific wretched excess. Be prepared for LOTS of pain and LOTS of blood. The reviewer who called it a "potboiler" is quite on track. If it had been made 40 years ago, the poster would've said: SEE FORBIDDEN LOVE!! RAPE!! MURDER!! MUTILATION!! FANATICISM!! ANIMAL CRUELTY!! BETRAYAL!! The opening sequence is not nearly enough to make the personalities and relationships of the characters believable. To work, this should have had multiple flashbacks to flesh out the characters. As it is, it seems a bizarre and depressing cross between "Brother Sun, Sister Moon" and "Pulp Fiction." If that sounds like something you've got to see, by all means, enjoy. I think I go with something that doesn't make me feel I need to take a shower to wash off the gore and gloom.As for the Catalan, it's the Mallorqui dialect, fairly different than the Barcelona dialect, though I was surprised by the comment that said that even Barcelonans apparently needed Catalan subtitles to understand it.

-Maybe Some Spoilers Ahead- I've read the novel on which this film is based, written by Mr. Blai Bonet, a renowned majorcan poet, it's more introspective than the film: though is not one of my favorites, I think it's good enough.I'm from the mediterranean island where all this tragedy occurs, so I was very concerned about how it will be, we are not used to see a story that happens in our island, written by one of our authors and as well made as this one. And I think I can be proud of this effort.I think that some of the matters portrayed in this dark tale about repression can upset some sensitive people, but they can protect themselves from that simply by reading this site, for example. It makes no sense going to watch a movie with another one in mind.This is a fiction that depicts how obscure feelings in a terrible time can destroy your life if you let them to control you; it's worth to see, especially for the intensity of the characters. My favorite is Francisca, because she makes the good choice, for me, and the most tender scenes in the film are hers, especially the dialogue between her and Ramallo when they are picking up the coins at the church and the very end of it all. Possibly a too harsh, rare, oppressive beauty.

Only the severely deluded will pretend that this film is great art or psychologically penetrating (although there is quite a bit of other penetration going on throughout). It is pure Spanish "Grand Guignol," beautifully photographed, strung out before us like a string of carefully spaced horror-cameo happenings. The director found a novel that contained all this excrement and he really went ape over the possibilities of cramming it all into one movie. The first sequence involves five young children who witness a guerrilla-style execution during the Spanish Civil War, but only three of them survive the experience. Then the film jumps forward bout 15 years, and those 3 survivors JUST HAPPEN to find themselves in the same TB sanatorium. The 2 men are patients and interact with other supposed patients, all of whom look incredibly buff and healthy.The shenanigans in the sanatorium have almost nothing to do with the events pictured earlier, but that is not surprising since nothing that happens in this movie has much relation to character or to reality. The gay sub-plots come strictly out of the blue, and aside from some nattering psycho-babble, there is nothing here relating to "the sea."Having said all that, go ahead and enjoy the movie! It is almost a parody of Spanish melodrama, smartly staged by a wannabe Almodovar.

I went to see that movie without knowing absolutely anything and I was surprised to realise that i was seeing an unusual movie. Good interpretations, script and great direction. Maybe a little bit of less explicit blood could be made a delicious film. A detail; this film is made originally in Catalan ( a language talked in some parts of Spain ), and filmed in Mallorca (where Michael Douglas has a house). Well, the Catalan talked in this island is so different than the Catalan in Barcelona that in the cinema that i went, the dialogue was subtitled (also in Catalan) to make it understandable!!!