Volver a Empezar (Begin the Beguine) (1982)

José Luis Garci's Volver a Empezar (Begin the Beguine) is a sad, charming story about a dying man. It's also very simply told. The film is a kind of tribute to people whose lives were interrupted by World War II, who left Spain and never came back. A generation – as the film says at the very end – whose lives were interrupted. I quite liked it.

Perhaps most improbably, of the 13 films that were nominated for the Foreign Language Oscar in the 1960s, '70s, and '80s – films by Pedro Almodóvar, Carlos Saura, Luis Buñuel, Francisco Rovira Beleta, and Jaime de Armiñán – this is the only film that won the award.

Two other Garci films were nominated for Oscars (Sesión Continua and Asignatura Aprobada), and I've managed to get my hands on subtitled bootleg copies of these movies recently, so I am sure I will watch them soon.

P.S. I have no explanation at all for this rainbow on the poster. Volver a Empezar is not a film about rainbows or floods or peace or homosexuality.