Miriam Lies (2018) User Reviews

La doble moral and el compejo de Guacanagarix & other prejudices

[claudia-savinon08 · 8/10 · 26 March 2019]

Have you heard about "el complejo de Guacanagarix"? This film shows a lot of social realities... the racism, "la doble moral", "los prejuicios", etc.

The pressure of a teenage girl on the days before her 15th birthday party! The pressure from her family, especially the mom... how she pushes away the boy she likes in order to not disappoint or embarrass her family, because he is black, but so is she and so is her father! The sweet irony!

But in the end, so is the boy and so is everybody in the film with their own shallownes and prejudices.

Aren't we all in the end? Does anybody escapes from having one or another prejudice?!

So Miriam lies in order to protect herself from the truth, that her mother would not accept her boyfriend as much the mother doesn't really accept her daughter either!

Had great potential but stays flat

[graham-harvey · 4/10 · 13 December 2021]

This film deals with a topic of importance in DomRep. There is a combination of general acceptance of different races within Dominican society (different to the relationship between Dominicans & Haitians) & yet lots of hierarchy & people trying to prove their importance over others.

In this film, the main character who is of mixed race (like most Dominicans), but who is darker than her mother, struggles to reconcile wanting to date a guy who is black with the pecking order that her mother & family friends are strongly committed to of the paler the better. The film does not really resolve this issue & nothing really gets challenged, so the end of the film shows the problem continuing with no challenge to this nonsense. For me as a white anglo westerner who has spent some time in Dom Rep, I am once again reminded of the ridiculous situation of some Dominicans trying to endorse their whiteness over others when most of the nation is varying degrees of colour based on most of history being a confluence of African & Spanish. It would be good to see this topic approached with a bit more grunt & confrontation.