Review Questions for Belle Epoque:
I. Director Fernando Trueba has explained about his film: “Belle Epoque
is the story of Paradise: too good to last. It’s about the discovery of
life, but the real one: freedom, art, love, sex, friendship. . . All the
things that make life interesting.”
How does the film represent the story of paradise? What cinematographic
techniques are employed to emphasize this? How is the idea of freedom represented
in the film?
II. What is the nature of historical representation in the film? Are political changes paralel to cultural and social changes? Can Belle Epoque be considered an example of utopian fiction or of mere nostalgic revisionism? Is Belle Epoque’s “age of beauty” a case of historical embellishment? What does it say about the cultural horizon of the 1990's?
III. How does the film represent the constructions of gender and the
relations between men and women? Does the film bring about the liberation
of individual male and female subjectivities and desires, or is it just
a “male fantasy”?