In that enviable rank of five-star, Madrid hotels have a natural advantage over the rest of the world.  It is one of the most splendid cities on the planet, in one of the most fascinating countries in the world.  The hotels here are, not surprisingly, a generous combination of grace and luxury, with some of the most cutting edge design and outstanding customer service that give Spain a reputation for hospitality.  The hospitality here is as remarkable as the culture, with a vast array of museums and galleries, and performance spaces that offer the best in world theatre, music, and dance.  Then there are the sumptuous restaurants, offering the best in world cuisine, where all of these things of high culture can be discussed.

One of the icon’s of culture in Madrid is the actress Carmen Maura.  She was born in Madrid and began her film work in 1969, with the short, El Espiritu.  Carmen Maura has been in a hundred films since then, and has worked with most of Spain’s most prominent directors, making her one of the most visible faces in contemporary Spanish cinema.  She has won multiple awards, including the European Film Festival Best Actress Award twice.  The second time was for her work in Ay, Carmela!, where she played an entertainer during the Spanish Civil War.  This was directed by one of the most important names in world cinema, Carlos Saura.

Her most popular work, however, has been with the extremely influential Pedro Almódovar.  Almódovar met Carmen Maura when they were working on a theatrical production of Sartre’s Dirty Hands, and they worked together on his first film, Pepi, Luci, Bom, in 1980.  There have been multiple projects since then, and her most famous work, perhaps, was in his Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, which brought them both international attention and acclaim.  Her own position in the history of Spain, having turned 30 when Franco died, makes her a particularly apt actress for Almódovar’s films, because she lived through a time when the traditions of hospitality and chivalry were starting to show their seams.  Identity and liberation were pushed to their limits under the old-world notions, and generations of young people around the world would look for possible escape routes where the individual could find possibilities rather than repression.  It is this link that makes her work in his films so remarkable on a meta-cinematic level, and her expertise as an actress that makes them work in the purely artistic sphere.  Her work is still going strong, and it will be fascinating to see what the next decades will bring for this magnificent artist.