Reviews

La Promesa is the story of a woman who starts a new life as a nanny in a rich Galician household. The story is presented with what i consider to be a prefix, an introduction to the story which gives reference yet is independent to the whole. It defines the Celia (Gregoria is her real name) character as an abused housewife who leaving behind her tyrannical husband heads on a pilgrimage to a Church in Galicia. Upon arriving she has a chance encounter with a child who has run away from his mother and whom she saves by chance. She is promptly offered a position as nanny of the boy, with minor resistance from the father. It is his growing opposition to maternal rule which turns the woman and child docile and which Celia believing she is their only defender. This the context within which the story takes place. It is a Psychoanalitical thriller about the friction of the clashing dualities of liberation and the maternal instinct within a woman's psyche. The film is fairly loyal to POV, although it allows us to see the seams of Celia/Gregoria's reality. While it isn't the best example of photographic excellence and some post-production glossiness is less than fitting, the aesthetic aspect of the film is at the very least appropriate, leaving the plot alone in driving the viewer's interest. It is another excellent Spannish Thriller about a woman with a very intense reversion of the Oedipus Complex. This is catholicism and psychoanalysis to a very detailed extent, which is made believable by Maura's excellent portrayal but which also asks quite a bit of collaboration from the viewer in terms of adapting to the films own rules' of reality. I thought it excellent, but i do wonder if the film's more visual aspects are sufficient hint for somebody who is not willing to follow the very Spanish intellectual/religious premise.

The film is excellent in making its point. The documentary arrangement is spotless, and the color gimmick is tolerable. In fact, for such a piece of propaganda, it is a good documentary. This nonetheless does not take away the fact that for a historian, or anyone interested in world history untainted by American revisionism, the film is of a heavy bias. Sadly, not a Japanese bias but rather a North American bias. There is no background to the traditional conflicts between China and Japan, no mention of the detrimental effects of Western (UK and USA)military pressures to open their markets or most importantly the pressure of American imperialism (Hawaii, Philipines, misc naval bases) upon Japan, in fact the film is so biased that the Japanese view of the Rape of Nanking is described thus: "to them it is not an invasion, but a liberation". Now, even if it was brutal, and accepting it was an invasion, why isn't there mention of the presence of Britain in China, the country it was being "liberated" from. There is even one ridiculous mention of "the great depression which originated after the market crash in NY 1929", it makes you wonder what kind of history degree is needed to make a documentary. The film even manages to make it seem like American and British control of CHina was a positive thing but Japanese control a bad thing. I mean, if i knew just a tad less of the actual history, i would have knelt right then and there and said the pledge of allegiance. Once again, well done, but, not truthful, real or accurate. Veredict: PROPAGANDA