Additional Captures

Director: Juan Minioni

Writers: Juan Minioni and Manuel Majji

Other actors: Francisco Rabal, Ema Suarez

La Blanca Paloma is a love story centered on the Bilbao's left bank. The title refers to an old flamenco bar which has been converted into a tavern called The White Pigeon. The tavern is located near a great iron and steel industry. Antonio portrays Mario, a radical Basque nationalist who falls in love with the sexually abused daughter of the tavern owner played by Emma Suarez.

Antonio said: "My character is somebody who moves by intuition. Continually questioned, he is very depressed. He speaks little and observes much. He is quite aggressive and tense. It is a character confronted with a great contradiction: with an ETA member brother dead at the hands of the police he's fallen in love with a girl who is the daughter of a Fascist. It was a movie that hit me in the guts."

Director Juan Minon said: "Antonio understood the immediate psychology of the character, the one which happened internally. He was an extremely receptive actor, he was giving, invading, confiding. Outside of filming he was a charmer and seductive, but those qualities he utilized with nobility, not in a perverse manner."

Actor Emma Suarez said that working with Antonio was quite simple, since in spite of the existence of "strong scenes", "I had the luck of agreeing with him about the form of facing them, and that facilitated many things. I rehearsed with him much at the time and he is easy to work with because he gives new ideas, he is vitalistic and he transmits trust."

The following information is provided by Miho from Japan.

The background of the story is a confrontation between people in Basque and immigrants. A riot by radical students gets more and more extreme. Mario (Antonio) is one of those students. His brother is killed in the riot by police. But Mario gets bored with the riots. He gets tired of the confrontation. The owner of a bar named La Blanca Paloma, Domingo, is one of immigrants. His daughter Losa works in the bar. Domingo hates the people of Basque and radical students. He also sexually abuses his daughter. Losa, who is sick of her father but at the same time afraid of him, wants to run from this town. Domingo's wife has been sick and always in bed. She knows the relationship between her husband and daughter, but can't do anything. One day Mario and Losa meet in La Blanca Paloma, and fall in love with each other. Her father is furious to know this and orders Losa to break up with him. Meanwhile, the radical student leader tells Mario to give her up. Because of these situations Losa's mother shoots herself. Mario and Losa are disgusted with the town, and decide to get out of there. He persuades her to get out of her house at fixed time. He plans to set the house on fire while she runs away. At the fixed time he sets the fire but he does not notice that Losa is still in there until the fire has spread all over the house.

Related Information

For his work in this film, Antonio won of couple of European best actor awards in 1990. Antonio in this film is truly beautiful. His role, Mario is very sensitive and distress himself about his surroundings, his family, his friends, a riot, etc. He seems to have some rage, not knowing "about who or what". Antonio expressed this character thoroughly. Though not so passionate, he is truly sexy and amorous. At the same time, his acting is wonderful. This is the first time he costars with Ema Suarez. They play together in Against the Wind later.

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