Product Description

A fleet sets sail for carry princess joan to the brussels court where she is to be wed to the monarch phillip the handsome. One look is enough to create mutual attraction and joan and phillip forget their political obligations and abandon themselves to their emotioins. However destiny has other plans for them. Studio: Sony Pictures Home Ent Release Date: 06/24/2008 Run time: 118 minutes Rating: R

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #42474 in DVD
• Brand: Sony
• Released on: 2003-01-21
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Color, Dolby, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: Spanish
• Subtitled in: English, French
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 115 minutes

Amazon.com
Spain's answer to Elizabeth is a 16th-century political conspiracy drama inspired by the true story of the "mad" Queen Joan and transformed by septuagenarian Vicente Aranda (Lovers, Jealousy) into an earthy bodice ripper. Age certainly hasn't dulled his taste for hot-blooded cinema. Spanish beauty Pilar López de Ayala, with her doe eyes and milky complexion, is the royal innocent sacrificed in a political marriage to the swarthy Prince Philip (Daniele Liotti with a Fabio mane of hair), a womanizing cad whose wandering eye transforms the naive virgin into a tempestuously jealous wife. Aranda matches Pedro Almodóvar in the arena of self-destructive love, obsessive passion, sweaty cinematic sex, and deliriously melodramatic spectacle. If this portrait of Joan as a volatile package of emotional nitroglycerin borders on melodramatic cliché, López de Ayala gives her a fiery, full-blooded passion and Aranda mounts her romantic obsession in an unhinged, undeniably lusty costume drama. --Sean Axmaker

Customer Reviews

Brilliant Drama
RECOMMENDED for anyone who enjoys a well-directed, historical film. Aranda fills this film with accurate details and with an interesting contemporary and feminist twist. His interest in forlorn love is at its best here, utilizing one of the lesser-known, but significant personages (among those in the U.S.,) as a tour-de-force vehicle into the narrow-minded, fickle, and antiquated Spanish 15-th century concept of women.
Though Aranda is notorious for explicit sexual portrayals, the ones in this film are not excessive nor senseless. Everything seems to have its place, and is quite believeable. FIVE STARS!!!

a many splendored thing
Juana De Loca, or Mad Love, is one of those movies that you end up watching and become released into and willingly lost in. this is how powerfull movies all are. this movie has so much passion in it i could not help but come to BECOME TOUCHED myself, brought to passions mighty edge. this movie is very captivating its too easy to fall in love with the look of the characters alone, let alone the beautifull sets, and scenery. this is to say nothing about the Acting, because it was flawless! every character worked perfect, you forget your watching a movie. you know those movies where the actors cannot carry the part or even worse arent right for a part and cannot even act? this is not one of those movies!

it was majestic, inspiring and brimming with beauty.

so much passion, if i could use one word to describe it, would have to be passionate.. but then i would go on and change my mind again later,then back again driven, just as this film has the ability to move the viewer backwards and forwards towards all its parts of perfection in every detail - never to be forgotten. 5 stars PERIOD

Walking The Fine Line Between Love And Obsession
Note: Castillian Spanish with English and French subtitles.

Based on historical accounts, director Vincent Aranda has created a lavish, sumptuous film set in 16th century Flandes, Spain. Princess Juana de Castilla (Pilar Lopez de Ayala) as come to fulfill her aristocratic obligation in an arranged marriage with Archduke Felipe of Austria (Daniele Liotti).

What begins as a great romance quickly degenerates into a very sad and depressing tale of infidelity on the part of Felipe and obsessive compulsive paranoia displayed by the frantic Juana. Juana's obsession with her husbands affairs escalate behaviors that are soon the main subject of gossip for the aristocracy and the labeling of the desperate Juana as "Joan the Mad."

When Juana's Mother and older brothers' die unexpectedly she now becomes heir to the throne of Spain. Will she reign as Queen, or will Felipe succeed in having her proclaimed mad by the Spanish court and put away?

Fine performances all around by this all Spanish cast, especially by the two main characters; Pilar Lopez de Ayala and Daniele Liotti. Also in a small but memorable role is the seductive beauty Manuela Arcuri as the Moorish princess Aixa-Beatriz.