duronmauricio For clarification purposes: Penélope Cruz was born 1974 in this 1982 film and Stefania Sandrelli plays not the rôle of her mother but that of her character's boyfriend, José Luis.

daniel Carbajo López Jose and Silvia are in love, and she is pregnant, so they decide to marry, but his mother doesn't want it and contract Raul to seduce Silvia in order to break this marrying. Bigas Luna makes a film to laugh about his own Spanish topics: Paella, Jamon, Toros...all mixed with some strange love stories that results on a yawning 90 minutes movie with only two or three things decent: The hams fighting between Raul and Jose and the bodies of a very young Penelope Cruz (by far, the best thing of the movie, maybe underage) and Javeier Bardem. The rest of the things, the jokes, the surrealistic setting does nothing more than annoy and bore. There's things better to do rather than seeing this film.

maleesh The only reason I am giving this movie a three is because there are a few funny scenes in what is mostly a very poor film. You might object to the somewhat boring relentlessly and unthoughtfully stereotypical treatment of Spanish love relations, or to what is, in my experience, the most facile use of symbolism (bull=phallic=machoman) in film (which is saying quite a bit since, sorry, but film is still, as Werner Herzog remarked, "The illiterate genre"). The comic potential of the movie---for it does start out with a few possibilities---is wasted on a botched attempt at drama, which, oddly enough, is so bad that it is risible. Again and again I am surprised how film-makers can put together such complete rubbish---and with impunity. A waste of celluloid and time.

meetjopeblack "Jamon, jamon" revolves around lust and machismo. It's basically about sex, sex, and more sex! From the very start of the movie, with a bulge shot of Raul (Javier Bardem) to the rape scene of Silvia (Penelope Cruz), the film presents a sordid tale of "love" among twisted minds and perverted people (as each character partners with another throughout the whole film.) You cannot mistake this movie for a wholesome film because sex is literally shoved down your gut every second as it is peppered with symbols of dogs, pigs, a parrot, ham (as the title so gives away), pearls and what have you, which emphasize on the already obvious theme of the movie--sex, while showering you with loads and loads of sex sequences. At one point, I began asking myself what the point of the movie is. The characters are given no dignity and the director doesn't give one any reason to sympathize with them.A ray of light or salvation for this film comes when Silvia after being forced into sex stands up and fights for her "womanity." She runs to her lover Raul and again, engage in sex. This time though impassioned sex/love making happens which is all too different from the previous ones. But later, Raul backslides and again gives in to money and the flesh leaving Silvia behind. Here, I accepted the fact that this movie is really about nothing. My feeling is validated by more surprises from other characters who aborted the purported salvation of this film. The movie ends with ham clubbing... hence, "Jamon, jamon." (I'd club this film with a ham too! grrr.)One good thing about the film is its title. The English translation of the film literally is "ham, ham" but my DVD subtitle says, "Of Love and Ham." I believe this is really the essence of the film--the pathos of looking for love in a community so driven by lust, greed, and selfishness. It is literally shown in the symbol of broken pearls and a pearl shoved in a pig's ass! The quest for love in such a forlorn community is like giving pearls to the pigs. Silvia could be anyone; she could be you or me... wanting some real love. Sadly, she risked it all to people who knew nothing more than giving in to the cravings of the flesh. For this I give the film a 4.