Sobering for older Australians is the upcoming Federal Budget, presided over by the most wasteful government since Whitlam’s in the 1970s.
Incompetence and starry-eyed policies have led to the nation being in debt for what may become decades. This, despite one of the greatest contributions of all time from mining and oil companies.
In simple terms, these businesses the government doesn’t like have paid for many of the policies which have turned out fizzers.
This climate has led to a new term: intergenerational equity. The government apparently considers this the gap between the money older Australians have which is unfairly more than that of the younger generations. Strange, I thought this had always been the case.
Calle Malaga (2025), tells a loosely similar tale in Tangier, Morocco so perhaps this is a cautionary global state of mind.
Maria Angeles (Carmen Maura) is a descendant of the Spanish community who escaped Franco’s dictatorship in the 1930s. Many left for Morocco and she lives in Calle Malaga in Tangier. She is a 79-year-old widow who loves her neighbourhood and is adored by all in it.
Shopping in her street is a daily encounter with all of this and we first see her joyously stocking up provisions to welcome her daughter, Clara (Manta Etura), visiting from Madrid.
It soon transpires that Clara is not the doting only child. She rarely telephones her mother and her visits are scant. She has two children and a crumbled marriage. Financially, times are tough for the underpaid nurse.
The visit soon turns into extreme discomfort when she tells her mother that she wants to sell the Tangier flat – for expedient reasons more than 20 years before, Maria Angeles’ and her husband put the title in their daughter’s name – and move her mother to live with her in Madrid.
Clara cannot see what can possibly keep her mother in Tangier, apart from her frequent visits to see childhood friend, Josefa (Maria Alfonso Rosso), a nun who has taken a vow of silence.
Maria Angeles is disgusted. Calle Malaga is her home and to spend the rest of her life in grandmotherly duties is not on her radar. She sees her own life being managed by a daughter who wants what she wants now, not on her mother’s passing.
With reluctance, Maria Angeles compromises. She sells her furniture (“the agent says it is easier to sell when a place is empty”) and moves to an aged-care facility. Despite the kindness and activities, the new home is all wrong and she plots to return to Calle Malaga and squat.
She uses what little money she has to redeem some of her furniture from a seemingly uncaring antique dealer, Abslam (Ahmed Boulane) but needs to provide funds to survive. This she achieves by ingeniously attracting football-mad patrons to her apartment to watch matches. Food is prepared and beers sold, all things the local cafes do not.
Time is bought by waking one night to find the real estate agent having a sexual tryst in what he thinks is an empty flat. A deal is struck and Maria Angeles is secure at least until a buyer is found.
Money she makes from the entertainment is used to buy back her furniture from the dealer. The two become friends and eventually lovers, in scenes, beautifully staged by co-writer/director Maryam Touzani.
All goes well until a buyer is found, Clara returns to Tangier to sign the papers and Maria Angeles’ future is in doubt.
Here Touzani and co-writer – her spouse Nabil Ayouch – leave the audience in suspense. No resolution is given and the screen fades to black with a dedication to “my grandmother”.
Calle Malaga is a wonderful film, full of humour and the warmth of the Tangier sun kisses all the characters.
Maura, herself aged 79, is a beacon of the Spanish film industry. She was highly awarded for her role as Penelope Cruz’s mother in Pedro Almodovar’s Volver (2006). However, is probably most famous playing the titular role in Almodovar’s Woman on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988)
Director Touzani gives a nod to this film by her use of roses and rose petals in Calle Malaga. In one scene, Maria Angeles’ body is gently covered in rose petals. In Woman, one of Maura’s celebrated outbursts is “life is not a bed of roses” to a friend who has just attempted suicide.
Her performance in Calle Malaga is a delight, telling with her eyes exactly what she is feeling. However, the scenes with Josefa rely on the spoken word and her description of the first sexual encounter with Abslam produces a discomfort which can only be released by a slight loosening of the nun’s collar.
Calle Malaga deserves a wide audience, especially by the younger generations to provide some understanding of life not being finished after 70. It also proves that an older person has earned the right to live within their own community, a space they have enriched for so long.
This is a beautiful film.
4.5
I WRIGHT 