Reviews

This film is generally held in much lower regard than de Fuentes other 1936 classic, Vamanos con Pancho Villa. The conventional wisdom is that Alla en el Rancho Grande, despite having been a huge commercial success, lacked the artistic merits and brave political message of Vamanos con Pancho Villa, which a survey of Mexican cinephiles rated the most important Mexican film ever in a famous 1994 survey. This film, on the other hand, has been generally regarding in Mexico as fodder for the ignorant masses, which set off the culturally embarrassing genre of the ranch comedy.

With my expectations tempered by that background, I must say that I found Alla en el Rancho Grande to be quite an outstanding surprise. For starters, the humor is actually funny; yet it's done with a subtly and restraint quite uncommon in Mexican "comedy". This is a testament to the skill of the actors, as well as the director and editor. Secondly, the film does a good job of providing a look into the true life of a Mexican village, with references to atole and pulque and the like. It's also filmed on location and it looks and feels authentic. Maybe that's one factor which drew audiences in the day, not just their presumed lack of sophistication. The storyline is well developed and character list is fairly busy; this is not a primitive talkie like most Mexican films of the 1930s. And the songs are all well done and interesting (you'll note no less than the great Emilio Fernandez in the cockfight dance). Gabriel Figueroa (a student of Eisenstein and a contemporary of Greg Tolland) does steady early work here as cinematographer. Finally, Esther Fernandez is perfectly cast as the orphaned Cruz; her youthful spark and ever-so-slightly coquettish glances provide a remarkable complexity and attraction to her character, which in fact make the whole story line plausible.

Mexican cinephiles tend to be excessively slanted towards high art in film (call it elitism), and are also frequently tinted by a mild strain of malinchismo (a peculiar yet pernicious domestic strain of self-loathing or mental slavery). Unencumbered by those mental deficiencies, I must say that Alla en el Rancho Grande might actually be the height of pre classic Mexican cinema.

A final note, de Fuentes remade this film in 1949 with Jorge Negrete in the lead. Needless to say, it was a sad retread unworthy of the original film.

By a strange twist of fate I happened to watch this film right after Francis Ford Coppola's 1983 dud, Rumble Fish. Fuera del Cielo claims to be an original script, but you could have fooled me as it felt like a 75% copy of that earlier story.

Demian Bichir plays the quiet, brooding part of the Motorcycle Boy, here called Marlboro. Mickey Rourke couldn't do much with that part himself, and Bichir provides no more. Perhaps I'm too used to seeing him as an on-the-edge middle class capitalino, but I never bought into him in this part. As his nemesis, Damian Alcazar gives perhaps his most uninspiring performance. I think Alcazar is one of the best actors alive today, on par with de Niro. His problem here is certainly the lame script and poor camera angles from the primerizo director, which have the effect of making him look distant and small. Rafael Inclan as the uncle is a poor replication of his great uncle Miguel (along with Claude Raines one of the great character actors ever), but here he surprises with one of his better performances; its too bad the script leaves him hanging out to dry. The female roles are the best and most interesting: Dolores Heredia (the lead from Santitos) is excellent, and as her fast-blooming daughter, Martha Higareda (Amar Te Duele) steals and enlivens every scene. Finally, Armando Hernandez as el Kuku provides a perversely interesting feel in his most prominent role yet. This script has him crossed somewhere between Matt Dillan's role in Rumble Fish with Eric Roberts' from The Pope of Greenwich Village.

Fuera del Cielo is most interesting in a few odd off moments (Hernandez breaking things in the background, Inclan reflecting on his life, Higareda encountering her sexuality, or Alfedo Garcia's girlfriend Isel Vega posing as a mother). But for the most part, this film just feels worn out, like retreaded tires.

While Mexican cinema saw new directions in 2006 with documentaries, an animated film, and Guillermo del Toro's Laberinto del Fauna, New Mexican Cinema laid two stillborn eggs in the form of this film and Un Mundo Maravilloso. Whether the movement is completely dead or not will probably hinge on Sultanes del Sur, Alejandro Lozano's follow up to Matando Cabos with Tony Dalton and the Catalan Jordi Molla. Stay tuned.

I finally got a chance to watch this by moving to Mexico and buying the DVD (143 pesos, or about US$13.50). You can get it on ebay occasionally and i think its well worth the asking price. The image has been digitally restored and it has both Spanish and excellent English language subtitles. I don't know why these haven't been made more widely available in the us yet.

Anyway, regarding the film: I was expecting it to be "hopelessly dated" as per a prior review and was pleasantly surprised to find this among Indio's more sophisticated works. I also liked the fact that he took a different turn and left the country for the big city. Gabriel Figueroa took advantage of the urban scenery with some great shots of the Zocalo, old town callejons, and dancing in the fabled danzon cabaretera. The story is never overwhelmingly complex but the acting is routinely superb and Fernandez manages to subtly lace the ambiance with the same universal human themes from his rural dramas; he was as much a student of Renoir as he was of Eisenstein.

Definitely give Salon Mexico a look if you get the chance. I guess you could call it "hopelessly dated" if you feel the same way about Casablanca or Double Indemnity. But then again you would be saying more about yourself then the film you are reviewing!

Good films sometimes come together in pairs or small waves. In that sense Machuca makes a fine companion to the Mexican film Voces Inocentes, also released in 2004. Both films are set during tumultuous times in Latin America. Both expose us to the reality of those events through the intriguing new perspective of the eyes of children. Machuca is a much more subtle and subdued film than its Mexican companion almost throughout, yet still manages to maintain our interest with some marvelous scenes capturing youthful innocence and its gradual but certain loss.

Manuela Martelli provided a standout performer as Gonzalo and Peter's young female friend. There seems to be a cinematic movement to show more and more teen actors in romantic situations, and this film doesn't shy away from pushing the age limit down a few years. While all the performances in Machuca are good, they seemed to me just a tad short of the level achieved in Voces Inocentes. And despite being a part Spanish film, the editing and other production values seemed just a touch less than the world-class level achieved by its Mexican companion. But I hesitate to say anything negative about this subtle and touching film. Machuca is definitely worth watching and it is probably the best Chilean film to date.

Finally, a word on the politics: I was raised in US colleges to believe that Allende was some kind of martyr crucified by the CIA. While the US certainly helped kill him, his rule did anything but make Chile a workers' paradise. While external forces certainly didn't help him, there is no question that his policies created financial and economic hardship above all for the working people of his country who couldn't escape them. If Marxism really worked, we would all be speaking Russian now. That said, the choices faced by Chileans during the calamity of the 20th century were between Allende's brand of fanatical isolationism, or Pinochet's brand of hate- fueled mercantilist cronyism. Neither group had the moral high ground and neither group had a solution to Chile's woes, and the result was a loss for virtually everyone involved. I think Machuca captured that idea very well.

I just saw In My Father's Den at its Seattle International Film Festival premiere and it was certainly an entertaining movie. The themes are fairly dark, the background scenery of the mountains and apple orchards (braeburn!) adds a nice touch, and the characters are all sufficiently flawed to make them real and interesting. The acting is routinely professional if never outstanding, and the mystery storyline plays out very well without becoming obvious even once it's exposed. All these aspects give it an intriguing sort of Kiwi Noir feel.

That said, the editing and cinematography from In My Father's Den never really exceed average, the story runs on a bit long, and there is nothing here particularly innovative or even cutting edge. Perhaps all the raving reviews had increased my expectations, but earlier kiwi gems like Rain (2001) and Whale Rider (2002) certainly also raised the bar. But I don't want to leave too negative an impression of this very interesting film. As Hollywood continues to produce worse and worse films, New Zealand has become one of a number of bright stars in world cinema and In My Father's Den certainly ranks amongst the better Kiwi films.

I just saw The Hunter at its Seattle International Film Festival debut at the Harvard Exit theater. I have always had an interest in Central Asia since doing a senior report on the area in college and as this film is from Kazakhstan I was compelled to check it out. The title of the film from the credits was written in Cyrillic script as "Anshi", not sure where the title here of "Okhotnik" comes from (perhaps one is Russian and the other Kazakh?).

As for the film, the strengths were certainly the cinematography of the natural surroundings of mountains and plains, as well as the close up looks at how the Kazakh people live. One gets a strong feel of their closeness to horses, their pastoral culture, and their food and way of life. It's a powerful anthropological presentation. The voyeuristic peeks at a beautiful young Kazakh woman were also well received by this viewer.

The weaknesses of this film, however, slightly outweighed those positives for me. For one, at times the language (particularly the Hunter) looked dubbed. Was it dual produced in Russian? That looked cheap. Also, the actors were not always up to the task. The young boy character had an annoying look to him, I was almost half hoping he would get put out of his misery. There isn't much of a story, and the actors frequently give poor performances. The director would do well to take a look at other films like Himalaya, Prisoner of the Mountains, Rabbit Proof Fence, or anything by Robert Flaherty for an idea about how to successfully direct non-actors.

Finally, I must apologize to everyone in the theater as apparently I was eating my popcorn too loud. Towards the end of the film this old dude turned around and yelled obscenities at me before taking the lord's name in vain. So much for too polite Seattle!

I just saw this film at the Seattle International Film Festival premiere and I enjoyed it immensely. I was a little apprehensious as I am a big fan of Oliver Stone's Salvador and I didn't think there was much more to say on the topic. But I must say that Voces Innocentes managed to bring something new to the table thru the innovative idea of telling the story thru the eyes of children. Adding to its poignancy is the fact that it's all based on the true life story of Oscar Orlando Torres, called by his nickname Chava in the film. Torres was present at the screening tonight and few who stayed to listen to him were not moved by his words and life experience. First time actor Carlos Padilla portrays Chava in the film, and his outstanding performance is a credit as much to director Luis Mandoki as it is to himself. The gorgeous Leonor "Cleopatra" Varela also shows she is much more than a pretty face, putting in a very moving performance as Chava's mother. The rest of the cast is also routinely superb, including Spaniard Daniel Giménez Cacho as the priest and Jesus Ochoa (uncredited on IMDb) as the bus driver. Voces Inocentes was filmed in Jalapa, Mexico and produced by the Mexican company Altavista Films (Amorres Perros, Todo el Poder, Nicotina). The cinematography and editing are world class, and the magnificent score really puts the film over the top. Torres told us that the main theme (played on the guitar by his uncle and in the closing credits) was his inspiration for writing the screenplay and it's not hard to see how he was moved by it.

According to Torres, the film will receive a wider US release in September '05 and the DVD release will follow sometime after that.

A final note: despite complaints to the contrary I don't think that the film necessarily took a strong side in the conflict. The government troops definitely weren't portrayed well but the acts of the rebels were neither so glorious. As Torres told us, this film wasn't so much a political statement as "the real life memories of a child". Highly recommended.

Just saw this film at its American debut (?) at the Neptune Theater as part of the Seattle Int'l Film Festival. Marmoulak (The Lizard) is a heartwarming and saddening tale about a man on the run who disguises himself as a Mullah while trying to sneak across the border to get out of Iran. A comedic satire in the tradition of La Ley de Herodes, Marmoulak is full of gentle humanist irony which becomes sadly evident but never too overt. Parvis Parastui gives an outstanding performance in the lead, and all the supporting roles are also acted at a highly competent level. The story and cinematography are quite professional as well. After a very successful run, Marmoulak was banned in Iran as sacrilegious. It's definitely worth checking out. Every American who thinks about the nuclear option when the Middle East is discussed should certainly be forced to watch this film.

I am a big fan of Emilio Fernandez, my favorite Mexican director. I have also had a fixation with Lilia Prado, who gets my vote for the sexiest woman in Mexican film history. Needless to say was excited to check out Pueblito when it was recently released on DVD.

Pueblito is essentially a melodrama in the same fashion of Fernandez's earlier films like Rio Escondido (1948). Maria Elena Marquez plays the helpless but determined teacher who has a burning desire to build a school. Fernando Soler plays the cruel cacique, the always elegant Columba Dominguez (El Indio's real life wife) plays a simple peasant woman, and Lilia Prado plays the cacique's eye-catching wife.

Nothing is really wrong here, but a couple of shortcomings deserve mention. First of all, buxom Lilia Prado just seems flat, especially compared to her incredibly sexy role in Bunuel's Subido al Cielo. Its not so much the extra ten years that weight her down, perhaps its the bad hairdo and a lack of opportunity afforded by the script. Or maybe it has something to do with the camera angles by cinematographer Alex Phillips, who never managed to capture what really made her special. Finally, except for some nice shots in the church capturing the nobility of human suffering, Phillips at best provides reasonable imitations of Figueroa's work. There was nothing new or innovative in his work here.

From 1944-1950, Emilio Fernandez's films were as good or better than anything being produced anywhere on Earth. But by 1962, the art of cinema had moved forward with realism as exhibited in films like The 400 Blows, La Dolce Vita, and L'Avventura. In the same year, David Lean was putting forth his great masterpiece Lawrence of Arabia. Pueblito shows that Fernandez was still in the same place as he was in the 1940s; sadly, the world of film had left him behind.