Unimaginative, undistinctive retitling of Joan the Mad, a tale of passion, infidelity, jealousy, madness, death. A tawdry and commonplace tale, in other words, elevated on the high heels of history and nobility: Princess Joan of Castile and Philip the Handsome of Flanders, ca. 1500. Well-produced, which is to say well-costumed and -propped; fine score (heavy on winds) by José Nieto; a solid job of direction by the veteran Vicente Aranda, known as a horror man in his earlier years, to the extent that he was known at all outside his native Spain. The talky story development, however, slows down in the second half and takes a long time getting to a foregone conclusion. Pilar López de Ayala breathes plenty of fire as Princess Joan, and wisely betrays no diagnostic opinion on the question of her madness. Perhaps sealing the case for her mental debility, Daniele Liotti's Philip the Handsome comes across as more like Philip the Hilarious, an I-Can't-Believe-It's-Not-Butter hairy hunk. (2001) — Duncan Shepherd
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