The best María Elena Flores’s drama movies

When Michel gets the life-sized sex doll he ordered, shipped directly from Japan, he is only intrigued by it at first. Then the silent unresponsiveness of the thing begins to haunt him, and he finds himself reacting to it as if it were an equally unresponsive living woman. As time passes, more and more of his life is spent trying to satisfy or placate its relentless silence, and he goes somewhat mad. He dresses the doll and takes it with him wherever he goes. When his usually very tolerant wife discovers what is going on, her jealousy knows no bounds and she attempts to imitate this threatening love-object. The light-hearted quality of this addle-pated fantasy darkens quickly when various neighborhood men attempt to put the doll to its originally intended use.

The story of a Spanish Cardinal who is told he only has one more year to live. He decides to return to his hometown, after an absence of 30 years, to sort out his affairs.

This 1985 Spanish film reveals one of the many terrible aspects of 16th century Spain, still plagued by the radical Christian Inquisition, one of a plethora of difficulties Spaniards faced at the time. Spanish super star Carmen Maura plays a nun who agrees to a selfless scam, a fake stigmata, only to avoid separation from her lover, another nun. It's a serious and passionate work, highlighting the theme of outspoken women-against-repression, seen in other good gay and lesbian films. This is not a lesbian "Nun sense" or another "Dark Habits" (by Almodovar, which also starred Carmen Maura, and also set in a Spanish convent, with some lesbian nuns). Perhaps, best of all, 'Extramuros' is realistic and frank. It isn't shy about its characters' sexuality. Their sexuality, and the film as a whole are genuine.

This movie has any coherent plot. It is more the portrait of the lives of different people in the hard years of post-war in Spain (the 40's), and how people manage to survive in a country desolated by the war. Like other films: la colmena or roma (fellini) it shows us lots of characters and some moments of their lives.

Berta (Tota Alba) has entered, once again, in prison accused of fraud. From the first moment she steps in the jail, she becomes the toy of all the veteran inmates. The number of conflicts in which she is immersed causes her to be transferred several times from penitentiary. In all of them will live some experience that will change her life; she will know love, hate, despair, etc.

Lorenzo is a young man who has just returned to Salamanca (Spain) from England, where he fell in love with Berta, a girl daughter of exiled parents who have never seen Spain. Lorenzo tries through some beautiful letters that she understands how is the world where her parents once lived.

After killing his girl friend, Ana, Amador (a dark and strange man) joins his family (which he can't stand) in Torremolinos, where he gets involved in the assassination of a foreigner woman. It is also in Torremolinos, where Amador meets Laura, a woman who falls in love with him...

Isabel returns to Spain, after several years of absence, to be cured of a neurosis. His daughter Ana, whom he has not seen in all this time, decides to spend the holidays with her, taking advantage of the fact that her boyfriend has gone to study in Germany. During her stay in the sanatorium, Ana meets Mario, an attractive young man somewhat unbalanced, who tries to seduce her. Although at first she does not show any interest, little by little she becomes attracted to him.

Enrique is a thirty-year-old lawyer who is married to Ana. Apparently he is a normal man who has only one obsession: the commercials. He feels a real passion for the erotic world of the ads either in billboards, trash cans, public transport, magazines or television. The continuous publicity bombardment ends up leading him towards a neurosis that changes his personality.

Little orphan Jorge, kisses his parents' grave to absorb their spirits. Her aunt Amelia helps her travel through time.