Film Review: 'Juana La Loca' ('Mad Love')

History as a subject for movies intrigues filmmakers, writers, and producers. For big budgeted features, it's a great opportunity for lavish costumes, scenery, violence, and romance. When it comes to films with themes about royalty, it has now become a sub-genre specializing with the historical accounts and intrigues of the royal courts. They may not always be accurate portrayals of historical events, but many of these films provide curiosity and following from varying types of viewers. With the Spanish film "Juana la Loca" ("Mad Love"), the movie provides a realistic idea of what life could be like during 15th and 16th century Spain.

Providing an intimate look at the life of "Juana," the Queen of Spain, the film begins with a scene of an aged Queen Juana (Pilar Lopez de Ayala), who in the year 1555 feels the grief and sadness of being imprisoned in a Spanish castle for nearly fifty years. The next scene moves back to 1496 when Castile's reigning Queen Isabel (Susi Sanchez), also known as Christopher Columbus' benefactor, tries to calm her nervous seventeen-year-old daughter Juana, who is about to marry the Archduke Philip of Flanders. As a young girl sent for an arranged marriage to strengthen the family's political ties, she is separated from her family and forced to live in a foreign land.

Juana is the eldest daughter of Isabel de Castilla and Fernando de Aragn, historically known as "Los Reyes Catolicos." Juana's youngest sister, Catalina (Catherine of Aragn) ends up headless following her marriage to King Henry VIII of England. In the film, Juana of Castile and Archduke Philip of Flanders (Daniele Liotti), otherwise known as "Felipe el Hermoso" (Philip the beautiful), heir to the Holy Roman Empire consisting of Germany, Flanders (now part of Netherlands) and northern Italy, are infatuated at their first sight. They marry without ceremony and they instantly go to bed a few minutes right after laying eyes on each other. Juana learns she likes sex a lot. Her love for Philip becomes consuming and obsessive. She begins bearing him children in rapid succession. Meanwhile, Philip goes far beyond his supposed hunting adventures. It is actually a disguise to his infidelity. Soon, political power becomes his major concern.

The film has a rich and sensuous look in staging that century's Spanish court life. It is visually powerful without being technically self-indulgent. It combines fact with fiction, history with histrionics. In dark hues, the scenery is almost entirely interiors of the palaces with high production values. The film's locations and sets are vast and ornate. The costumes are richly detailed. The grainy presentation of 16th century Europe looks palpable. The cinematography benefits from the details of the production design. Blacks are dense and rich with good shadow detail. It has many warm and dark, candlelit interiors which is in par with the treatment and story.

Juana's love for Philip is entirely physical and sexual. The young Juana and Philip have a week-long honeymoon/sex marathon. Since then, she turns into his slave. Philip's manhood becomes the instrument for her misery. Juana is a victim of the males in the court who surround her. Philip, a complete womanizer, plays the man's game, while she lives according to the "rules for women" who has been repressed, suppressed, and oppressed during those times. Her ambitious husband strikes a deal with her father King Ferdinand of Aragon, then he uses her jealousy against her. Along with the treachery of her unscrupulous father, Philip gets the throne, free to bed whoever he desires, while Juana's lack of control permits the manipulation of her husband to have her declared incompetent to rule. Her lust and obsession for her husband overtake her sense of duty. She is declared mad and forced into incarceration.

Aixa, a Moorish King's daughter, Philip's favorite mistress, and later on, one of Juana's ladies-in-waiting disguised with the Spanish name Beatrix, gives a disease to Philip. This is covered up until he is on his deathbed. Philip's principal aide De Vere (Giuliano Gemma) plots to have Juana declared insane so the throne can pass to Philip before his death to enable them to control of Castile. As the Castilian nobles fail to get the queen into political action, they realize that Juana is indeed unfit to govern. However, before she is incarcerated, Philip dies at the age of twenty-eight. Juana ends up confined at the isolated fortress of Tordesillas for the rest of her life.

In this film, Juana's psychological landscape is left unexplored in favor of her purely sexual motivations. Her husband, her father, and most of the other characters are depicted not very favorably in the film. They are given considerably black and negative characters. Even with Juana, she is portrayed as a merely obsessed woman. There is no much scene of her interacting with her children or conducting her responsibility as queen. She becomes emotionally unstable as even the aged Juana seen at the closing scene of the film laments for Philip to the point of saying that she even misses the smell of his armpits.

"Juana la Loca" skips to indulge with the mostly expected fight and battle scenes as with the usual medieval eras and royalty scenes captured on film. Moreover, the film fails to develop the political climate of the time. It could have been more appealing if there are more details to satisfy some possible questions in the minds of the viewers who are not familiar with Juana in Spanish history. And athough the film takes place over 10 years, the characters don't seem to mature. Nailed to the same characterizations from start to end, their one-dimensional roles lack much depth.

Pilar Lopez De Ayala as Juana is the best thing in the film. Her acting is superb. Daniele Liotti's characterization of Philip, a man endowed with the great looks and sexual appeal, is valid. However, the character he plays features a dull and selfish royalty who can only be identified with that sexual, sometimes disinterested, and sometimes treacherous stare. He is effective enough for the ensemble, but he could have served a better purpose if there is more dimension to his character. As a controversial and a beautifully filmed period film, the film suggests that Juana's madness reflect how she is a woman way ahead of her times.