Spoilers --see this great film first.
This film will make you feel ashamed for ever being discontented with your job --which to a certainty is better than poor Macario's, which is bringing sticks of wood he has cleared from the forest to a local baker for a few cents a day. His children, of which there are many, are always hungry. --As is he. Therein hangs the tale. After going to the baker during the Day of the Dead festivities, and seeing turkeys baking in his great ovens, Macario vows never to eat again, until he can have a whole turkey to himself, and eat until he has no trace of hunger left. He proclaims that had he such a meal, he would not share with anyone, not even his children. --Is it for this un-Christ-like desire, understandable as it is, that Macario pays during the unwinding of this scenario? I do not know. But the specters of injustice and death and human want and misery hang over this film like the thick aroma of cooking food. A candlemaker, especially busy during the Day of the Dead, tells Macario he should buy candles for the dead to show respect and pity, because, as he puts it, "We spend a lot more time dead than alive." That is perhaps the signal line of dialogue in this sad, thought- provoking film. Ten stars. See it.
This film will make you feel ashamed for ever being discontented with your job --which to a certainty is better than poor Macario's, which is bringing sticks of wood he has cleared from the forest to a local baker for a few cents a day. His children, of which there are many, are always hungry. --As is he. Therein hangs the tale. After going to the baker during the Day of the Dead festivities, and seeing turkeys baking in his great ovens, Macario vows never to eat again, until he can have a whole turkey to himself, and eat until he has no trace of hunger left. He proclaims that had he such a meal, he would not share with anyone, not even his children. --Is it for this un-Christ-like desire, understandable as it is, that Macario pays during the unwinding of this scenario? I do not know. But the specters of injustice and death and human want and misery hang over this film like the thick aroma of cooking food. A candlemaker, especially busy during the Day of the Dead, tells Macario he should buy candles for the dead to show respect and pity, because, as he puts it, "We spend a lot more time dead than alive." That is perhaps the signal line of dialogue in this sad, thought- provoking film. Ten stars. See it.