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40 of 43 found the following review helpful:
 One hot day � fourteen people � countless possibilities!Jul 04, 2004
By giovannif7
"giovannif7"
Kilometer Zero (Km.0) is a wonderful Spanish import about how missed connections and fate can alter your life path. Fourteen people are drawn to the title spot at the center of Madrid for various assignations on one of the hottest day of the year. A young film director arrives in town, looking to share an apartment with an actress friend of his sister. The actress, intent on kickstarting her career, spots a famous producer and hatches a plan to get his attention. A down-on-her-luck hooker arranges to meet an inexperienced groom-to-be to conduct some business. A dancer uses the internet to connect with a sex partner. A middle-aged businessman's neglected wife fills her hours of boredom by hiring a gigolo. The gigolo's roommate, a gay man, longs for a lover rather than just another sexual partner. In the heat, patience evaporates and fate intervenes, leading to numerous missed connections and mistaken identities. Several locals become drawn into the mix as well, including a local bartender who dreams of owning his own business; the bartender's shallow, robbery-prone fiancée and her younger sister; a police officer with impulse control issues; and a mysterious stranger who seems rather bemused by the whole scenario. The film is extremely European in tone, and very unlike similar-themed American and British comedies. Sexuality is celebrated in all forms, including physical relations between older women and younger men, friendly intimacy and flirting between straight men and gay men, and the goal of helping a prostitute to earn what she's worth, rather than rescuing her from the profession. Sex scenes are fun and erotic without becoming overly graphic, human frailties are addressed without judgment, and taboo topics of concern are touched upon as plot points before being clarified as misunderstandings. The cast is uniformly attractive and up to the challenge, the script does an excellent job of interweaving the various characters and storylines, and the direction and production values are first rate. If you enjoy films that are politically incorrect, brazen, and very, very sexy, you'll have a great time meeting up with the crowd at Kilometer Zero.
17 of 17 found the following review helpful:
 "Now I need something else to lick"Aug 13, 2005
By M. J Leonard
"MikeonAlpha"
Km.0, a sweet-natured and gloriously vibrant Spanish film, is perhaps possessed of one of the most beautiful looking casts that I've ever seen in a movie. Full of pretty men, and women, Km.0 is all about the importance of serendipity and providence, and that life's choices and coincidences can sneak up on you, just when you least expect it.
It's August, and Madrid is absolutely sweltering. In fact, it's so hot that everyone, distracted by the heat, is prone to getting his or her connections scrambled. When fourteen separate people show up for arranged liaisons at central Madrid's Puerta del Sol, where the street marker reads Kilometer Zero, they end up loving and connecting in ways that they never intended to.
Paths unexpectedly intersect, misunderstandings are randomly accepted, new relationships are formed, and the steamy heat raises new passions in a fluid dance of sex and love. The plot is contrived and the idea is far from original, but producers Juan Luis Iborra and Yolanda García Serrano, imbue the proceedings with such a fresh-faced effervescence, that the movie's shortcomings fail to diminish its many free-spirited and bubbly moments.
The neurotic hooker, Tatiana (Elisa Matilla) arranges to meet Sergio (Alberto San Juan), a nervous virgin, and ends up instead with Pedro, a young student (Carlos Fuentes) who fancies himself as a film director. After nearly being run down by him, Silvia (Mercé Pons), highly-strung actress tries to get a temperamental producer (Georges Corraface) to give her an audition.
In the same diner where this takes place, the diner's owner (Alberto San Juan) rebuffs the advances of his fiancée's underage sister, while said fiancée, Amor (Silke Klein) goes shopping and gets repeatedly robbed. Amor eventually gets tangled up with Roma (Cora Tiedra) and a love-struck policeman (Roberto Álamo).
Meanwhile, Miguel (Jesús Cabrero), a hunky gigolo, trysts with Marga, (Concha Valasco), an older woman who is unhappily married, while Miguel's gay roommate, Benjamín (Miguel García), takes advantage of a case of mistaken identity to have sex with a horny flamenco dancer (Victor Ullate Jr.). Tatiana ends up taking sex advice from Máximo (Armando del Río), the easygoing gay guy, and the original man who missed his computer date with the flamenco dancer.
At first glance, all the connections may seem a little confusing, but the pacing is steady and the characters larger than life, so you never have that much trouble following all the diverse episodes. There are also various subplots that effectively bounce off each intersection of the characters: Marga discovers she has a long-abandoned child; Pedro gives Tatiana a makeover from a cheap to a high-priced whore; and Máximo has a strange transformation into some kind of real, rather than figurative, guardian angel.
As with a lot of films that come out of Spain, Km.0 has a great deal of excessively overt confessional dialogue, so viewers who don't speak Spanish really have to pay attention to the subtitles. I also wouldn't read much into the sexual polemics of Km.0. Is it a romantic comedy? Well, perhaps, but it's probably more of a romantic drama, where the topic of sex pops up every moment that it can.
Whatever the case, Km.0 has a refreshingly earnest sexual frankness, which is both hip and cute at the same time. And let's not forget the absolutely beautiful cast - Km.0 is totally worth watching just for all the sexy actors alone. Mike Leonard. August 05.
16 of 17 found the following review helpful:
A Sparkling Spanish Comedy of Errors!Mar 03, 2004
By Grady Harp
It seems we are in a time for the release of many fine Spanish films and the release of the DVD KILOMETER.0 is one of the best. Directed by Yolanda Garcia Serrano and Juan Luis Ibarra (yes, two directors and perhaps that is why the story is so equally cognizant of the female/male interpretation of relationships), this beautifully paced, hilarious, touching, tender comedy has it all. 'Km.0' is the very center of Madrid and serves as a coincidental meeting point for each of the 14 characters in the story. Mistaken identities, curious consequences, chance fortunes and misfortunes, surprise discoveries all collide and the result is a fun and entertaining farce that keeps your attention through the film. Each of the characters (a prostitute, a novice film director, gay men out for internet encounters, hustlers, middle aged needy women, sisters at opposite ends of the values spectrum, a sexually uptight fiancee, a needy bartender, a frustrated actress/singer, a guardian angel, etc) is well fleshed out and everyone of these disparate characters finds the entry to our heart at the end of a day. The cast is uniformly excellent: each one finds the center of the character so that we know the characters as well as we know our best friends. The musical score is a delight, the views of Madrid and the funky interiors of the various rendezvous all are imaginatively colorful, and the sensitivity of the two directors is secure and mature. This is a little marvel of a film is well worth buying for your permanent collection. In Spanish with English subtitles.
14 of 16 found the following review helpful:
Km-0 (Kilometer zero)May 12, 2001
In an age of technology, the movie Km-0 is an excellent movie which details the adventures several Madrilenos (citizens of the city of Madrid) taken on when they simultaneously arrange a rendez-vous on-line. The plot becomes interesting as we get to meet the different people who meet for the very first time. They all come from different walks of lives. Some have a lot to lose if their secret date is found out while others simply search for instant self gratification and want nothing more. Like most of us, they have unresolved issues which they bring into their date/new relationship. Most importantly, since everyone is trying to be discrete with their secret escapade assumptions are made that the person they are meeting at kilometer zero is most definately their date. These assumptions give both a twist to the plot and thicken it. Everyone ends up with the wrong person on their secret date. Over all, each character is forced to look within; they learn a lot about themselves, become rehabilitated, overcome fears and phobias, find missing loved ones and find love. This is by far one of the best movies I have seen in years which gives the viewer a humanistic view into our new high-tech society, the flaws of on-line dating and the omnipresence of destiny. From a much more romantic point of view, if you are destined to be together it matters not how you meet but that you had the honor of the encounter which initialized the life changing event we call LOVE! I have already placed my order for this DVD.
7 of 7 found the following review helpful:
Delightful romp builds on "mistaken identity" themeNov 17, 2004
By Bob Lind
"camelwest"
"Meeting a stranger in a public place + mistaken identity = hillarity." It's a premise that has been used in romantic comedy films for 40 years, but it is given a creatively modern and deliciously diverse twist in "Km.0" (Kilometer Zero), a 2000 romantic comedy set in Madrid. Fourteen diverse people, including an engaged couple, a nervous man looking for his first sexual experience, a hooker, a would-be director and a would-be actress, a rich matron looking for a fling without her neglectful husband, a musical producer, all plan to meet someone at the landmark spot in that city at the same time, and everyone ends up spending time with someone other than who they planned to meet.
It's a fast-paced, creative and warmly captivating farce, showing how people's lives can unexpectedly intersect and affect each other for good. The characters, and the actors that play them, are genuine and likeable, and the direction and photography are excellent. If there is to be one central moral of the story, it must be "Life goes on...and so do you", with subplots involving reluctant grooms, a mother-and-son "reunion" that doesn't go as she planned, one that could be titled "Queer Guardian Angel for the Straight Guy," and kind of a reverse "Pretty Woman" story. Not a gay film, but the gay characterizations are positive and endearing. In Spanish with English subtitles.
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