

Bruno Ganz seduces a family like only a Swiss uncle can. Awkward holidays await.
During a long summer, the tranquility of a couple and their three children resting in a country house is altered with the arrival of the children's uncle, a character who exerts a curious influence on the boys and a morbid and strange attraction the wife. Twelve years after 'Los viajes escolares' (1973), his first commercial feature film, the Madrid director Jaime Chávarri returns to the same estate in the province of Segovia to shoot a new family story, about his own plot and script. Like its predecessor, 'The Golden River' contains a strong autobiographical charge and is full of personal resonances. But this new history of family ties is narrated from a perspective in which adultery manifests itself openly. Endowed with a slow narrative rhythm, the film presents an international cast headed by Ángela Molina, Bruno Ganz, Francesca Annis and Stefan Gubser. The film also has the presence of a very young Juan Diego Botto, in one of his first appearances on the big screen.
Cinematography
Segovia estate returns from School Voyages—same place, darker story.
Acting
Ganz's quiet menace versus Molina's unraveling restraint.
Direction
Chávarri exorcises family demons through formal control.

Director
Jaime Chávarri
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Juan Diego Botto was only twelve here; three decades later he'd become a major Spanish star and political activist.
This belongs to the 'destape' aftermath—Spanish cinema processing Franco-era repression through bourgeois family decomposition.
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