It's My TV….It's My Peanut Butter

Would we drink coffee with Sandra Cisneros?

Kristy:  Sure.  I kind of feel like I owe her at least a cup since Cammy and I met the third Reina Protestante, Mary, in a class where one of our big assignments was reading The House on Mango Street.  I also wrote one of my first grad school papers on “Woman Hollering Creek.”  I enjoy her writing because she’s one of too few (IMO) contemporary writers who write stories you can enjoy as casual reading that also have a rich deeper layer waiting to be explored if you so wish.  That balancing act isn’t easy and I think she does it well.  She’s also spent a lot of her life teaching and I’m curious to know whether that was a deliberate choice or just something to pay the bills.  Regardless, I’m interested in her views on education and a whole host of other issues.

Cammy:  Sure thing.  Anyone who chooses to live in San Antonio, Texas already stands a fairly good chance of being worth talking to.  And, as Kristy said, we totally met Mary in a class where we had to read The House On Mango Street.  Only it was La Casa en Mango Street for that class, and it was the first full book I ever read in Spanish (prior to that, the longest thing I’d read was a play).  For my part, I’d love to talk to her about her life going back and forth from Chicago to Mexico.  Nothing like a nomadic back-and-forth-between-worlds life to give a writer fodder for life.  I’m not sure I’d be able to hold up my end of the conversation as well as Kristy, but I’d be delighted to share a cup of coffee and listen in.

The Official Story (La historia oficial) (1985)

Director: Luis Puenzo

Writers: Aida Bortnik and Luis Puenzo)

As I’m trying to clear out my Netflix queue before I cancel service this week, I’m trying to zip through the large quantity of foreign films I had added.  With time running out, I no longer slog through a movie that’s not worth it.  If it’s a dud, I kill it when I’ve had enough, ditch it from the queue and move on.

The Official Story?  Very much NOT a dud.

The film–made in 1985–revolves around the aftermath of the Dirty War.  The fairly affluent high school history teacher Alicia begins to suspect that her (adorable) adopted daughter Gaby may have been stolen from one of the thousands of “desaparacidos“–political dissidents who were “disappeared” between 1976 and 1983 by a repressive military junta in Argentina (estimates vary from 9000 to 30,000).  Her suspicions begin with the dissatisfied grumblings of the students she’s teaching, unhappy with the sanitized history in the text books, and only grows when her class reunion brings a long-absent friend, Ana back into her life.  In a wine-soaked evening of girl-talk and catching up, Ana reveals that her disappearance years ago was not at all voluntary.  As Ana recounts the stories of kidnapping, torture and prisoners whose infant children were taken, Alicia begins to wonder exactly what the circumstances were under which her suspiciously well-connected husband obtained their now 5 year old daughter.  As Alicia presses to learn more, her husband Roberto’s connections are collapsing and the entire situation blows up in a violent confrontation prompted by Gaby’s absence and Alicia’s accusing question “how does it feel not knowing where your child is?”

It helped that I was familiar with some of the history of the Dirty War, but it’s not necessary.  Alicia–like many Argentinians at the time–didn’t really know the depth of what had happened during those years.  If you walk in ignorant of the history, it’s okay, because the whole movie allows you to learn right along with Alicia.

And even if you want to set aside the value of the subject matter, it’s just a well put together movie.  Norma Aleandro (who, incidentally, I learned was exiled from Argentina during the military junta period for her left wing views, and only returned in 1982 when the junta fell), gives an absolutely fantastic performance as Alicia.  You don’t need any Spanish vocabulary at all to get the weight of what this woman is going through.  And some of the well-played parallels (Ana’s story, followed by what happens on Gaby’s birthday;  the story with which Alicia opens the movie, coupled with the ending with Gaby in the rocker….).

Even the thing that initially had me giggling–the painfully 1980s look (honestly, I kept thinking I was going to see Bruce Willis and Cybil Sheppard cruising in the BMW blasting “Beat It” with MacGyver clinging to the roof)–turned to something more sobering.  The kid in question, Gaby, is my age.  The desaparecidos (including ones like Sara’s daughter) are my parents’ age.  It’s not that I didn’t know this logically from reading articles and that one Latin American history class I took, but the nostalgia I felt at seeing the fashion and decor added a whole new level of concreteness to the situation.  It also brings home that this movie was made so incredibly close to what happened.  The junta fell in 1982.  This film came out in 1985.  You can’t tell me that wasn’t a raw wound at the time.

All in all, I give this five full jars of peanut butter.  Highly recommend this one, and I will definitely watch it again (and special note to Kristy and Mary–you should watch this one if you haven’t already).

This week I review a foreign film for which I didn’t need subtitles (except with all the sexual slang.  No one taught me those words in Spanish class).

Y tu mamá también (2001)

Directed by: Alfonso Cuarón

Written by: Alfonso Cuarón and Carlos Cuarón

Summary: Two young men, Julio (Gael García Bernal) and Tenoch (Diego Luna), from Mexico City go on a cross country trip with an older woman, Luisa (Maribel Verdú), in the process discover some things about class, sex, and friendship.

Things I liked: When Jano calls Luisa to tell her he cheated on her she’s wearing just a shirt and panties, and the panties are borderline granny panties.  It’s not attractive, but it makes her seem that much more vulnerable and a little pathetic when she gets the news.  There’s also a sequence where Julio is running around in his tighty whities and it’s very unattractive, but kind of supports the idea that he’s not half the stud he thinks he is.  I love the highway scenes on the highway because it really shows the weirdness that is driving the highway in Mexico.  The narration about Tenoch and Julio using each other’s bathrooms highlights the class difference between them very well—it’s a nice way of showing it without hitting you over the heads with it.  The movie seems really determined to constantly bring you back to the harsh realities of life for most Mexicans.  In some places this works wonderfully, but in others it’s just distracting.  One place I particularly liked it was a sequence where Julio, Tenoch and Luisa are driving and through the windows you see a truck of armed soldiers pass them then stop and go after some poor men standing by the side of the road.  What’s particularly telling is that the characters don’t really notice it.  I like that the actors look like real people; okay, I don’t know anyone who looks like Gael Garcia Bernal, but I feel like I could know someone who looks like him.  They aren’t glammed up.  The note that Luisa leaves Jano on the phone really got to me for some reason.  It’s the combination of what she says—a few things that hint at what she’s really feeling then a lot of menial details (“pick up your clothes from the cleaners” etc); that combined with the camera work is really effective.  The camera shots are often distant and that almost makes you feel like a voyeur.  Like you’re spying on these people and aren’t supposed to be watching.  It also allows you to see everything that’s going on and get a full perspective on the characters’ reactions, etc.  When Luisa and Tenoch have sex it’s very obvious he doesn’t know what he’s doing which is realistic when you consider his age.  The camera work when Tenoch and Julio are in the leaf covered pool is beautiful.  Tenoch getting so upset to learn his girlfriend had cheated on him with his best friend, when he has just fucked his cousin’s wife and apparently slept with his best friend’s girl shows a common type of sexual hypocrisy, once again without beating you over the head.  I love the shot where Luisa is saying goodbye to Jano on the phone and reflected in the glass next to her you see the guys playing ping pong.  It beautifully illustrates the differences in what this trip means to him versus her.  I like the way the movie tells you the fate of so many of the people they run into, including the pigs that wreck their campsite.  It kind of highlights the way so many people come in and out of your life and you never know what happens to them.  For whatever reason it’s sadder to me that Julio and Tenoch never saw each other again than it is that Luisa died.  Though to be honest, neither was much of a surprise.  The last line of the film is  a double entendre that doesn’t really translate:  It can either mean “Give me the bill” or “I had a realization.”  Not only do I think that captures a lot about the moment, it allows me to show off my knowledge of Spanish.

Things I liked less: The scene at the beginning with the traffic jam caused by the pedestrian from Michoacán being killed is a little random.  I get that that’s the point, but for me, it really didn’t work.  The scene in the restaurant where the camera leaves our characters and goes into the kitchen where the poor people are cooking and dancing and listening to music.  I get that it’s trying to show the social stratification, but it’s very strange.  Not sure what I think about the way the narration is inserted, where it goes totally silent before the narrator comes in.  I like the narration, I’m just not sure I like the way it’s incorporated.  I wasn’t that bothered by it, but I feel like it needs to be said that there’s a lot of penis in the movie.  Like naked time all over the place.  Don’t watch this one with the parents.

Rating: I was surprised by how much I liked this one, because I’m often annoyed by all those films that are about the “gritty reality of modern life”.  Four out of five jars of peanut butter.