In Praise of Older Women 1997

In the chaos of 1936, as war erupts, the boys at a Catholic boarding school in Republican territory are sent home. Among them is Andrés. With his widowed mother’s flat in Gerona requisitioned and her far away in La Coruña, he decides to bicycle to reach her through the turmoil.

On the Aragon front, he is stopped by an anarchist unit led by the charismatic Dávalos and drafted to help the cook Honorio, who is having an affair with a peasant woman Pilar Pilar. Also detained are a wealthy Englishman and his American wife, la Condesa, for whom [Andrés] serves as interpreter and earns a reward. He is then sent to safety in Barcelona, where he begins an affair with Julia, the virgin daughter of the house, but he is evicted before they can consummate.

To survive, he turns to the black market, and one night he seeks out a prostitute, but she is so bored that he leaves in disgust. The war ends, his mother returns home, and she is set up in a flat by her Falangist lover, Victor. Above them lives a married woman Marta, who lends Andrés books and begins an affair with him. Yet Marta and her well-off husband were Republicans and are eventually taken away by the secret police.

In the street, the memory of [Pilar] resurfaces as they share a night together. Later, at a concert, he is drawn to Bobi, an Italian violinist, and they share a brief idyll. When Bobi’s orchestra is set to perform again in Vichy France, the pair heads toward the frontier station of Canfranc, where Andrés rejoins her.

This story spans love and loss, courage and compromise, against the backdrop of a country torn by war. It traces how one young man’s search for connection threads through dangerous loyalties, shifting classes, and political upheaval, shaping a life that moves from danger to fragile hope as the journey finally leads toward a new horizon with Bobi.