the former boyfriend of his beautiful fiancée. The driver tris to find the man and learn more about their previous relationship. "Jealousy is at the center of stories of passion", Aranda explained. "To suffer with relish, there is nothing better than uncertainty. A good story demands that audiences share the same doubts than the main characters in the story: whether there is or is not a betrayal. There is always some else lurking and we also know that crime is among us even if it exists albeit only at the bottom of our hearts". Juana la Loca (2001) In the early 21st century, Aranda started to explore period pieces, initiating a trilogy of historic costume dramas with Juana La Loca (2001) (Mad Love), a reinterpretation of the tragic fate of the 15th-century Spanish queen, Joanna of Castile. At a time when royal marriages were made to secure political alliances, she fell madly in love with her husband and suffered from his infidelity. A commercial and critical hit in Spain, the film was the nation's official entry at the 2001 Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film. It became Aranda's biggest box-office movie. Carmen (2003) Desire and betrayal, themes that have been recurrent in Aranda's career, are central to the plot of Carmen (2003), a film based on Prosper Mérimée's 1845 novella about jealousy and passion. (This had also inspired the opera of the same name composed by Georges Bizet. Set in Andalusia in 1830, a military officer is seduced by a striking gypsy girl who works in a cigarette factory. His love for her brings his downfall. The film was made with high production values and it was another success with audiences for the veteran director. Tirant lo Blanc (2006) Aranda completed his costume drama trilogy with Tirant lo Blanc (2006) (The Maidens' Conspiracy), an adaptation of a seminal Catalan chivalry novel, written in the 15th century by Joanot Martorell. The plot follows the adventures of Tirante, a knight from humble origins in the Byzantine Empire, who gains the favor of the ailing Emperor by his triumphs in fighting the incursion into Constantinople by the Turks. Tirante later seduces the royal family's only surviving child, a young, fanciful, and impressionable princess. This is Aranda's most expensive work and was made with a large budget. The film has both humor and drama, is lavish, risqué, and skillfully composed, but it was