The Lost Paradise (1985 film)

The Lost Paradise (Los paraísos perdidos) is a 1985 Spanish film directed by Basilio Martín Patino. It stars Charo López alongside Alfredo Landa, Juan Diego, Miguel Narros, Ana Torrent and Paco Rabal.

Plot
An unnamed mature woman, daughter of a Spanish Republican exiled lecturer, returns to her parents' country, where she meets a number of people from her past, including Miguel, Benito, Lorenzo and an unnamed Socialist politician. She translates Hölderlin's Hyperion in the family house.

The film, an expression of the disenchantment experienced after the Spanish transition, underpins a criticism to the transition itself and the so-called pacto del olvido.

Production
Shooting locations included Ávila, Toro, Salamanca, Madrid and Zamora.

Release
The film screened at the 42nd Venice International Film Festival in August 1985. It was theatrically released on 17 October 1985.

Reception
Ángel Fernández-Santos of El País, considered The Lost Paradise to be a "prodigiously assembled" film, to which the camera of Alcaine "bordering on the sublime" and the musical score's intensity and coupling add up, filling it "with rare beauty", while noting that it featured a couple of events (two additions of "foreign coarseness") totally out of place.