The 7th Day

El 7º día
Directed by	Carlos Saura
Written by	Ray Loriga
Starring	Juan Diego, Victoria Abril, José Luis Gómez, José Garcia, Yohana Cobo
Cinematography	François Lartigue
Edited by	Julia Juaniz
Music by	Roque Baños
Distributed by	Prestige Films
Release date	April 23 2004
Running time	102 mins
Country	Spain
Language	Spanish

El 7º día (English: The 7th day) is a 2004 Spanish film directed by Carlos Saura and based a true story. It stars Victoria Abril, Yohana Cobo and Juan Diego. The plot follows a bitter rivalrary between two families that started with an ill-fated love affair, and grows over three decades.

Plot

On an isolated village in Extreamdura, the Jiménez and Fuentes families have dragged a violent history of land dispute, jealousy, envy, and blood. The hatred between the two families begins in the 1960s as a love story, between Amadeo Jiménez and Luciana Fuentes. Their romance ends when the fickle Amadeo drops Luciana, when she already have all prepared for marriage. Feeling betrayed, Luciana expresses a vengeful wish on her seducer in the presence of her fragmented, devoted brother Jerónimo who, in turn, executes his sister's wish, resulting in the young man's cold and brutal murder in an open field.

Despite Jerónimo's capture and 30-year prison sentence, the shame on the Fuentes family still proves to be terrible burden as the townspeople continue to treat the siblings with open contempt and derision, culminating one day in a suspicious fire that engulfs the family home with their mother still inside. The Fuentes siblings move to a village nearby to avoid direct contact with the Jimenez family headed by Amadeo’s brother, José, who feels the two families are even now.

Humiliated, forcibly driven out of town, and struggling with Luciana's delusional obsession over her broken engagement, the Fuentes's harbored animosity festers with each passing year, awaiting Jerónimo's release and pondering the inevitable day of reckoning against the community that had turned its back against them.

Two decades later when Jerónimo is released from jail, he rushes to look for Antonio and stabs him. Antonio survives. Carmen, Antonio’s wife deeply affected by the attempt on her husband’s life, pressures him to leave the village and move out to a big city, but Antonio is unable to sell his butcher shop for the money he is asking.

The events are narrated by Isabel the oldest of José’s three lively young daughters. A summer romance develops between the teenager Isabel and Chino, a young rebel who goes around town riding his motorcycle. He is sincere in his affections and she falls for him. With his help, Isabel is determined to discover the seed of hatred that has tragically marked the story of the two families for more than thirty years. However, she dismisses the testimony of the slow-witted, drug-addicted witness - the child of an incestuous relationship.

Isabel’s love for Chino ends, before it has time to deepen, when Chino is forced to leave town abruptly fleeing the authorities that have discovered his illicit drug dealing. He gives her a gold chain as a farewell gift. Upset she throws the chain into a swimming pool then back out to retrieve it.

On the seventh day of creating the world, God rested, Isabel notes, and that is why the most horrible things happen on Sunday. One Sunday the two aging brothers Antonio and Emilio Fuentes come to town with rifles and ammunition. Their revenge engulfs the entire village and its inhabitant pay with their blood. Systematically and in cold blood, they gun down every person that cross their path beginning with the three young Jiménez sisters. When the killing spree is over, Isabel is among the wounded survivors, but her two sisters Antonia and Encarna are, like many others, death.

The next day, the Fuentes brothers are captured and send to jail for life. Their two sisters, Luciana and Ángela, are also found guilty, but regarded as deslutional, they are locked in a mental institution. Isabel and her mother move to a city on the coast, leaving Antono behind. He has refused to leave the village. Isabel beholds a picture of happier times in which she is with her sisters.

Cast

• Juan Diego - Antonio Fuentes
• Victoria Abril- Luciana
• José Luis Gómez - Emilio Fuentes
• José Garcia - José Jimenez
• Yohana Cobo - Isabel Jiménez
• Oriol Vila - Chino
• Eulalia Ramon - Carmen Jimenez
• Ramón Fontseré - Jerónimo Fuentes
• Carlos Hipolito – The fool
• Ana Wagener -Ángela
• Elia Galera -Clara
• Carlos Caniowski -Raúl
• Juan Sanz - Amadeo
• Irene Escolar – Antonia Jimenez
• Alejandra Lozano – Encarna Jimenez

DVD release

The 7 th day is available in Region 2 DVD in Spanish with English subtitles.