Mararía (film)

Set in 1930s Lanzarote (the easternmost of the Canary Islands), the plot tracks an English vulcanologist and a Basque physician vying for the love of Mararía, a local Canarian woman.^[2]

The screenplay is an adaptation of the 1973 novel Mararía by Rafael Arozarena,^[5] featuring substantial changes from the original work, such as the reduction in the number of males courting the character Mararía to 2, the characters portrayed by Gómez and Glen, the latter of which is an amalgamation of two characters from the novel.^[3] The film is an Aiete Films, Ariane Films and Mararia PC production,^[4] with participation of TVE, and in association with Portugal's Fábrica de Imágenes de Lisboa and France's C. V. de la Société de Production and D. M. V. B. Films,^[6] with support from Sociedad Canaria de las Artes Escénicas y de la Música, the Canarian Governmen's Viceconsejería de Cultura y Deportes and the island cabildos of Lanzarote [es] and Gran Canaria [es].^[7]

Distributed by Alta Films,^[4] the film was theatrically released in Spain on 30 October 1998.^[8]

Jonathan Holland of Variety considered the "terrifically lensed" film to be "a good old-fashioned melodrama" that manages to have enough "intelligent idiosyncrasy" to give it its own "power and charm".^[4]