Jamon Jamon

JAMON JAMON has the delirious lusty excess of Douglas Sirk's CinemaScopic imaginings or King Vidor's luridly Freudian male-menopausal period of DUEL IN THE SUN, THE FOUNTAINHEAD, BEYOND THE FOREST and RUBY GENTRY. Director/writer Bigas Luna has assembled a savory paella, incorporating a lot of disparate and obviously highly personal elements--the eponymous hams, the talismanic effects of garlic, a parrot named Guaca, bullfights, a string of pearls, a closetful of shoes, class struggle, advertising, the unreasoning pull of sex, potato omelettes--and tying them all up with tortuous finesse. It all seems to fall determinedly and rather self-consciously under the headi...