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Reviews
El cielo y la tierra (1962)
Wild Guys and Girls singing Paul Anka covers!
It's always hard to review a movie like this. I mean, when you have a dramatic talk between a Nun and the "wild" kid who is trying to explain youth culture to her, explaining the 60's Mexican slang... Libertad Lamarque is the morally upright but profoundly understanding nun who wants a broken family to get together again. Cesar Costa is a young man, who is becoming a musician to pay for his studies, as Dad is not home.
Full of those wonderful Mexican 60's cinema clichés, Cesar Costa breaks into song without any real reason every now and then, sometimes during rehearsals, sometimes while romancing a wild young Angelica Maria, but at some point during the movie, he has a discussion about the wild young culture, and... he sings a "dissonant, musically clashing song... this sounds being the expression of our rebelliousness... a cry out for help and the understanding that we kids don't have... when our parents don't have the time for us, we find shelter in this wild, dissonant and rebellious music..." ...and then starts singing a Spanish version of "kissin' on the phone" by Paul Anka.
A dated movie, but still funny, although maybe for the wrong reasons. Watch it for a taste of the good IL' Mexican Rock movies...
El día de las sirvientas (1989)
Social commentary?
This movie is the chronicle of a bunch of domestic servants and how the world is after them. Ha.
Believe it or not, there's lots of social commentary in this crappy movie: when the maids are not being pursued by the snotty kid, then they are pursued by the father; they are accused by their employers of being lazy, obnoxious or downright, of being thieves. The life of a maid is really, really hard, according to this movie.
It is full of stupid jokes (someone actually sez to Jorge Reynoso: " this is like a movie... and you are like Jorge Reynoso!"), and has nothing to offer...
Yet, who can resist a movie with the title "day of the maids"?????
p s i guess nobody buys Meche Carreño's accent. Even she forgets sometimes the way she's supposed to talk.
El puño de hierro (1927)
Sex? Drugs? and... Silence?
(May Contain Spoilers, if you actually get to see it one of these days).
Shocking, silent film, which, not unlike "Reefer Madness", tells a cautionary tale of the perils entailed by drug use. A young couple is corrupted by a mysterious Doctor, who gets the Young Man in trouble to gain the favors (the title cards tell us something to that effect) of the Young Girl. A strange sexual tension can be felt a couple of times during the movie.
Has some notorious sequences, including an "underground vice den" where syringes and smoke are pervasive (there are even some beds in the foreground that seem to be opium beds), and strange patrons fill the landscape.
A subplot has a Kid detective and his sidekick chasing a hooded Bandido Gang which, at the end, becomes something of comic relief.
Maybe the most direct and clear reference to drug abuse in Mexican Cinema. Certainly Unusual for it's time, and a milestone in Mexican Moviemaking. Recently restored by the National Autonomous University of Mexico's Filmoteca. Watch This One if you Can!!!!
No te engañes corazón (1937)
Fortune, Misfortune, and the quest for joy.
*spoilers, maybe* though quite probably you won't be able to see this one soon...
A smallish, somewhat subdued man, Don Boni, is diagnosed with a heart sickness (though he rather looks like he is dying from tuberculosis) and decides to give his life a new spin, freeing himself from his wife's clutch, exposing a fraud, helping a pair of poor down-on-their-luck hoods (by picking up their bar tab and paying their train fare); getting the payment for a construction workers union; fixes a bar fight; gets very very drunk; buys a lottery ticket; and wakes up the next day with a hangover, and the surprise that he won the lottery and that his doctor has been jailed for fraud.
Look carefully for Cantinflas, still a character in the making. Well, not too carefully, but still, he is not yet the Cantinflas the Mexican audiences got to know later on. Also, check Sara Garcia, legendary Grandma-of-all in her role as Don Boni's wife.
Tepeyac (1917)
A nation born under a religious figure
*some sort of spoilers* though quite probably, you won't see this one soon!!!!!
The notorious "Tepeyac" was the first Mexican Movie of a bunch dealing with religious themes; and in particular with the visions of San Juan Diego (elevated by the Pope to Sainthood in 2002), who, according to the story, was visited by apparitions of the Virgin Mary, and later became bearer of a holy image that appeared in his cloak, and which is now worshipped in the Basilica de Tepeyac. Tepeyac is, in fact, the place where the apparitions took place.
Now, the movie tells us the story of San Juan Diego, and the apparitions, using Special Effects ( in the silent-era meaning, of course), and representing all the incidents as they are traditionally known. However, to make the story more palatable to the audience, a plot of sorts is introduced, where a Diplomat and his wife-to-be are separated by a special mission, whereas the Diplomat will have to take the next Steamer to Europe (to Paris, if i remember correctly) so he can make it to an important meeting. The left-behind fianceé stays tense, and worried about her beloved, when she hears a news report announcing that the boat where her beloved was leaving has been sunk (this is world War I, you know!). To help her relax, her mother starts retelling the story of the apparitions. After all the story is shown, a new telegram arrives, in which the young Diplomat anounces he is safe. To celebrate, the young couple go to the Basilica, the girl to thank our Lady of Guadalupe; the Diplomat to reflect on the historical importance of the apparitions.
A great movie, historical gem, and not to be missed if you can get a hold of it. There was only one print here in Mexico, as far as i know, which was entirely washed and restored by the National Autonomous University of Mexico, and broadcast on TV as a celebration of San Juan Diego's elevation to Sainthood.
¡Vuelven los García! (1947)
Epic, if anything
Second and last part of the famous "Garcia" Series, this one follows up with the conclusion of the deadly rivalry between the Garcia and Lopez families. A bit darker than the first one (Los Tres Garcia), it presents that strange, particular brand of moviemaking that marked Mexican Cinema's Golden Age: Music intermissions (the most attractive ones being, obviously, Pedro Infante's songs), comic relief subplots and characters, and some very dark moments.
Characters are constructed around some relatively simple cliches: Pedro Infante as the loudmouthed, ever-active Charro which was so often his character, who gets drunk and fights anyone within sight at the slightest provocation; Abel Salazar as the shy rancher who has a hard time getting to girls, and Victor Manuel Mendoza as the poet, an elegant and worldly-wise man. Over them, the heavy (Very heavy!) figure of cigar-smoking Grandma Garcia (Sara Garcia, lovely as ever, which mostly keeps a, hum, limited screen time, but is actually pivotal to the plot resolution), which uses her heavy Iron Hand to keep the Three Young Garcias from facing the Lopez family, as their fathers once did. She remains a landmark of Mexican cinema, being able to switch from playing the Straight part in small sketches (disseminated throughout the movies) to becoming the dramatic "voice beyond the grave", so to speak, that guides Pedro Infante's character to taking the decisions that ultimately resolve the story.
The Drama involved in the final "duel" scene between the "last (free) men standing" of both the Garcia and Lopez families is not to be missed. You'll know who they are when the moment comes.
Ismael Rodriguez at his best, in that strange kind of comedy that never fails to entertain, and that delivers laughter, sighs, slapstick, tears, screams and, to some degree, adventure, in a single, easy to swallow, package. Epic, yes, and even a Cult movie, to some degree...
El crimen del padre Amaro (2002)
Greater is the scandal...
WARNING: Could contain Spoilers to the Movie's plot.
This movie by Carlos Carrera, who in the past has been noted for "La Mujer de Benjamin" and "Sin Remitente", has been released in Mexico mere days after the visit of Pope John Paul II, and in a time when scandals of sexual abuse haunt the Roman Catholic world heavily. Extreme Right-wing groups have criticized the movie for its portrayal of the clergy, by representing them as corrupt, and by the dessecration of religious symbols. Yet, this is a movie based in a book first published in the late 1800's. Being shocked at this story is like being shocked at Shakespeare (Suicides! A Guy cooks his enemies and feeds it to their mother! Crossdressing!). Humanity, I hope, is ready for bigger things than this. And by the way, there's more to the movie that I could include in this single Review.
What you will really find shocking is that people still make a fuss over what is actually a Moral Tale. Damnation could be the real theme of the movie: The viewer can actually follow the process through which the Young Father Amaro, a clean, tranquil soul just out of the seminar, gets tangled and corrupted into a life of sin. Or something like it. It's not a "Decameron", in which the corrupt clergy are even portrayed humorously (Bocaccio includes a story about a Mother Superior who receives the "services" of an Abbott, and eventually urges her nuns to do the same, for one). It's not a piece in which gratuitous displays of sacrilege are portrayed. All seems to lead the movie to scream at the audience: Look at this guy! He's scarred by love, yet he can't 'cause he's a priest! Look at him being damned (almost literally to hell) by his own love!!!!
Gael Garcia doesn't exactly give one of the best performances of his budding career. We've seen him as Ramiro in "Amores Perros", and Julio in "Y tu Mama Tambien", and several other roles (including that notable bit in "Bendito Infierno"), and here, he seems fragile, at most corruptible... but one can't but imagine that any moment now he'll roll a joint, or he'll just get his dog ready for a fight. It would seem that he's starting to become a victim of typecasting. Still, he delivers well the character of a very frail, young man troubled between his Faith and his love.
Other performances in this (Mexican) Star-studded film are brief and not very substantial, including Ana Claudia Talancon as the Girl which Father Amaro ultimately falls in love with. She's a lovely presence onscreen, but she is still too weak as a character to be a justification for Father Amaro's damnation, and that may be the disquieting part. She's not a Vamp, a Man-eater, or to put it quite simply, she's not the bitch she should be. She's a normal, innocent, town girl, who falls in love for the handsome young male who just arrived in town... except he's a priest. So, the culprit (accesory? who's to judge?) of this priest's damnation is not a deamon herself, but a common, normal girl. Scary.
The performance worth of an Honorable Mention is in the secondary character of Dionisia (the woman who's always at church). If you are to believe this movie wants to tell a moral, and that as a moral fable there must be allegories, keep a keen eye on the subtle signs that surround this character (her comments to other people, her sudden and mysterious apparitions). Though open to debate, it is most probably not a coincidence that she is intermediary, or author, to various acts of sacrilege (including stealing the Holy consecrated Host from the Church during communion and then feeding it to a cat), but in the end, she is more of a passive party facilitating access to sin; It's the characters around her that ultimately decide to do the actual sinning (or not). Is she really the d... Well, look for yourself, and decide who she actually is.
The movie departs from the original novel by Portuguese author Jose Maria Eca de Queiros (called "greater than Flaubert" by Emile Zola) in that the novel portrayed the corruption of the church and the cheapening of values. Characters where viewed with Irony, and Amaro was a man who, like many young men of his time, was forced to either become a Man of The Cloth or a Man of War.
Be prepared for the Song of Songs, maybe the highlight of the film, try and find who is the real father of Amelia, and try not to flinch at the sacrilegous acts (covering with a cloak made for a Virgin image in the church?), as well as the presence of the nasty (but always welcome) Narcos. Try not to remember the recent scandals as you watch. But before anything else, be prepared to watch the corruption of a man like any other. Be prepared to watch the title character sink in his own sin, and taint himself with the earthly temptations. Then decide if it is really making fun of priests and religion... or if it is actually calling attention to moral degeneration. Enjoy the movie, and decide what was the real Crime of Father Amaro.
La trenza (1975)
Weird... pretty weird... but you gotta see it...
This is a weird story about a small town, kind of coastside, where a curious mix of characters live, which are in a way caricatures of Mexican countryside people (the fisherman, the long-disappeared sailor, the priest, the devout women, the municipal president, etc...) Among these characters, we find an "evil woman of ill repute", and a young boy that falls in love with her. But this is just the backdrop for the story: One day, this woman is kicked out of town discreetly, and humilliated by having her hair braid cut (the title's "trenza").
Someone finds the braid in the street the next day, and somehow proclaims it is the braid of a saint, dropped from heaven as a miracle for the town... ....weird thing is, things start going well for the town, and the relic from an evil woman is working miracles.
The fanatical impulses of a whole town break loose, to disastrous results...
I won't comment further, but there's an Alfonso Arau movie that sounds very much like this, called "Picking up the Pieces"... in that one, it's not a braid, but some gal's hand, and this movie has Woody Allen, Sharon Stone, and other stars... but somehow, i still prefer La trenza...
I have to say that "La Trenza" has low production values, but even so remains, in my humble opinion, a good movie....also, it's a staple of 70's Mexican Films, when Mexican filmmakers where struggling to make good movies, but mostly fell in the "art house" kind of movie...
Try and see this one...
Smooth Operator (1995)
Low budget....
A really Low budget comedy (which I caught in a cable movie channel) that offers a lot of soft core sex jokes, hospital/killer doctor humor, big-breasted nurses and a Jack Nicholson Look alike.
I won't comment further. Good effort, though.