Mama Turns 100

Ana returns with her husband Antonio to the country house where she once worked as a governess; the old woman who owns it is turning a hundred and there is to be a celebration. The house is not what it was: the family has run out of money, one of the sons is gone, and those who remain wait on the inheritance and move through the place more like tenants than owners. As the party goes on, it emerges that every one of them has a calculation about when the mother will die. The film is a sequel to Saura's Ana and the Wolves from 1973, with the same characters, the same house and largely the same cast. What separates them is the regime: the first was made while Franco was alive, this one after the dictatorship ended, and Saura can now stage the family's rot as outright comedy rather than veiled symbol. Geraldine Chaplin plays Ana again. It was nominated for the foreign film Oscar in 1979 and took the special jury prize at San Sebastián.