HISPANIC ACTORS AND MOVIES - PART 2

 The Academy has recognized more Hispanic females than males for their acting talent, but that doesn’t mean it has treated them more equitably.  Although ten Latinas have been nominated, none of them has won an Oscar for Best Actress.  Furthermore, only one has taken home the statue for Best Supporting Actress.  That was fifty years ago when Rita Moreno (a Puerto Rican) was chosen for portraying Anita in West Side Story.  At first glance Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o, who won for her role as Patsey in 12 Years A Slave, appears to be Hispanic, but she is actually African.  Her Kenyan parents just happened to be in Mexico when she was born.   What’s important to keep in mind, however, is that these actresses came from a lot different of countries, meaning they might have been recognized by the European Film Academy (Spain), the Sur Awards (Argentina), the Brazilian Film Academy (Brazil), the Macondo Awards (Colombia), the Ariel Awards (Mexico), or the Cannes Film Festival which recognizes entertainers from all around the world.   The two movies I chose to discuss at some length in this post are Volver and Like Water for Chocolate.  Note that I have started putting the names of the characters in bold when they are first introduced to make them easier to track.

 

Penélope Cruz, Volver, 2006-Spain

Admittedly, Jennifer Lopez is probably the best-known Hispanic actress in the U.S., but one of my favorites is Spanish actress Penélope Cruz.   Two American movies featuring her that I really like are Blow (2001) where she played the wife of American cocaine dealer George Jung (Johnny Depp) and Vanilla Sky (2001), a remake of the Spanish film Abre los ojos (Open Your Eyes), where she reprised her role as Sofia Serrano alongside costar Tom Cruise.  According to IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes, however, one of her best films is Volver written and directed by Pedro Almodovar.  The word volver in Spanish means to return, which characters in this movie do, both literally and symbolically. 

I had never heard of this film, but when I read online that even Pulitzer prize winning critic Roger Ebert liked it, I knew I had to see it.  Like Roger, I really enjoyed the story, but my final analysis differed from his.  He thought the movie honored women, and it did, by highlighting the way they maintained familial relationships, took responsibility for performing life’s menial tasks, and patiently endured the cruelty of the men in their lives.  What I believed the writer was more concerned with, however, was communication.  Things went from bad to worse in the story as long as the characters kept secrets.  Once the truth came to light, however, their problems cleared up almost as if by magic (Magical Realism?). 

The lead characters are Raimunda (Penélope Cruz), her sister Sole (Lola Dueñas), her daughter young Paula (Yohana Cobo), the ghost of her dead mother, Irene (Carmen Maura), her elderly aunt Tía Paula (Chus Lampreave), and Tía Paula’s friend and neighbor Augustina (Blanca Portillo).  Young Paula and Raimunda live with Raimunda’s husband Paco (Antonio de la Torre), an unemployed drunk who has furtive sexual desires for his fourteen-year-old daughter.  Their home is in Madrid, far from the tiny superstitious village of Alcanfor de las Infantas (camphor of the princesses) where Raimunda and Sole grew up.  Sole, who also resides in Madrid, lives nearby. 

The story opens showing women in the cemetery of Alcanfor de las Infantas washing and polishing the headstones of their dead relatives while being battered by a brutal East wind that blows constantly.  Raimunda and Sole are there to care for the grave of their parents who died in a house fire three years earlier, and young Paula has tagged along.  After completing this task, they visit Tía Paula, a feeble old woman who talks about their mother as if she were still alive.  Naturally, the sisters think their aunt has gone crazy, but when Sole goes upstairs to use the toilet and smells her mother’s scent, she starts to wonder.  To better understand what’s going on, the three go to Augustina’s house.   Surprisingly, Augustina more or less defends their aunt, stating that although she has not seen Irene, she has heard the women conversing.   The prospect of Irene having returned as a ghost makes her sad because it brings back memories of her own mother who disappeared the night of the fire.

They return to Madrid and Raimunda drops young Paula off with Paco before heading to work.  Paying the bills is her responsibility since Paco doesn’t have a job, so despite the way he lecherously eyes their daughter, she leaves the two alone together.  While she is out, Raimunda runs into restaurateur Emilio (Carlos Blanco) who is selling his business and moving away.  He gives her the keys to his restaurant then asks her to meet with the prospective buyer and collect the down payment.  She agrees, but never gets the chance because when she comes home from work young Paula is waiting for her at the bus station sopping wet from standing in the pouring rain.  She has to ask the child repeatedly why she isn’t home with her father before the girl finally confides that he tried to rape her, and she killed him.  Since the restaurant has an industrial-size freezer, Raimunda decides to hide her husband’s body there for the time being.  While she’s doing that, a man from a movie production company that is in town comes in and asks if she can cater a party for the crew.  Seeing an opportunity to earn enough money to make a down payment on the establishment for herself, Raimunda agrees. 

While Raimunda’s preparing for the party, however, Augustina calls and says that Tía Paula has died.  Unable to do two things at once, Raimunda sends Sole, who is terrified of the dead, back to Alcanfor de las Infantas to attend the funeral alone.  After the service ends, Sole goes to her aunt’s house to see it one last time, then returns to Madrid.  When she gets home, she hears a noise coming from the trunk, and upon opening it, finds Irene’s ghost hiding there.  Even though she’s terrified, Sole takes pity on the homeless spirit and brings her inside.  At first, Sole keeps her new houseguest a secret, but when young Paula comes over, she introduces the girl to her grandmother because she doesn’t have the heart to keep them apart.  She cautions the child not to tell her mother, however, because Raimunda is resentful that Irene made her live with Tía Paula when she was young.  It turns out that the reason Irene didn’t want Raimunda at the house, however, was because her father was having sex with her.  Unfortunately, Irene waited too long and Raimunda ended up becoming pregnant with young Paula, meaning that her child is also her sister (a familiar plot for anyone who has seen Chinatown), and that Paco was not young Paula’s real father after all.  

A few days later Augustina, who has been feeling unwell, comes to Madrid to be admitted to the hospital.  When Raimunda visits and learns that the woman is dying of cancer, she offers to help.  In response, Augustina asks her to go to Sole’s apartment and find out if Irene’s ghost knows anything about her mother’s disappearance.  Raimunda, who had no idea her mother’s ghost was at her sister’s apartment and has no interest in seeing her dead or alive, half-heartedly promises that she’ll do what she can.  When she gets to Sole’s place and learns that Irene’s spirit is indeed staying there, however, she reluctantly agrees to a meeting.  As the women begin to talk, Irene explains that rather than having died in the fire, she set it to punish Raimunda’s father and Augustina’s mother for sleeping together.  

Afterwards, she went to Tía Paula’s house to hide out for a while, but when she realized that her sister was too frail to care for herself, she stayed.  Now that the family’s secrets have been revealed, their troubles fade away.  Young Paula stops blaming herself for killing her father, Raimunda forgives her mother, and Sole quits fearing the dead.  Emilio even agrees to sell Raimunda the restaurant when he learns that she wants to buy it.  At the end, when Augustina is discharged from the hospital, the women drive her back to Alcanfor de las Infantas, and Irene decides to become her caregiver to make up for killing her mother.

Thoughts

This story has two motifs.  As Roger Ebert pointed out women are portrayed in their best light as nurturing, loyal, conscientious, and loving.  Irene takes care of Tía Paula, Raimunda and Sole wash their parents’ gravestone, Raimunda risks going to prison to save her daughter, and although she is afraid of the dead, Sole accommodates her mother’s ghost.   A second theme, however, is the damage that comes from keeping secrets.  As long as the women prevaricate, their lives are fraught with struggles, but when they start to tell the truth, healing begins.  Once Raimunda admits to Emilio that she never met with the buyer, he agrees to sell the restaurant to her.  Once Sole admits to Raimunda that their mother’s ghost is living with her, Raimunda and Irene can clear away the issues that drove them apart.  Once Raimunda tells Paula that Paco was not her dad, the girl is released from feeling guilty for killing her father.  And once Irene confesses that she killed both her husband and Augustina’s mother in a jealous rage, she can rejoin the living.  Now she is free to interact with her family and can compensate Augustina for the transgression committed against her.  You can find an excellent overview of the movie at:  https://www.asharperfocus.com/Volver.html.

Lumi Cavazos, Like Water for Chocolate (Como agua para chocolate), 1992 -Mexico

This movie is based on a novel by author Laura Esquivel.  Before reading on, you might want to consult a study guide for the book that I found online because it provides important information not contained in the film.  Just go to https://www.coursehero.com/lit/Like-Water-for-Chocolate. 

Although they were made in different countries and are about different eras, Like Water for Chocolate is similar to Volver in that it also examines a woman’s place in the Spanish family and society.  The movie opens in contemporary times, with a young woman named Bisnieta (Arcelia Ramírez) describing the relationship between cooking and emotions.  Then she produces a diary written by her great aunt Tita de la Garza (Lumi Cavazos as an adult-who from some angles reminds me of Maureen McCormick in her Brady Bunch days- and Edurne Ballesteros as an adolescent) to take the audience back to the turn of the Twentieth Century where Tita’s parents, Juan (David Ostrosky) and Elena (Regina Elena), are throwing a fiesta to celebrate her birth.  As the men stand around laughing and gossiping, one cruelly reveals that Juan’s middle child Gerturdis (Claudette Maillé as an adult, Natalia De la Fuente as a child, and Beatriz Elias as an adolescent) was fathered by another man.  When the distraught husband hears that his wife was unfaithful, Juan has a heart attack and falls over dead.  

After her husband’s death, Elena remains single not because she mourns for him, but because she still pines for Gertrudis’ father, a mulatto man that her parents forbade her to marry who was murdered shortly after Gertrudis was born.  For this reason, Tita grows up with only females as role models: Elena whom the children call Mama, oldest sister Rosaura (Yareli Arizmendi as an adult, Melisa Mares as a child, Gabriela Canudas as an adolescent), bastard sister Gertrudis, and the cook Nacha (Ada Carrasco). 

The story revolves around Tita and Pedro (Marco Leonardi), the son of a family friend whom she has known since childhood.  The two are clearly in love and no one is surprised when the young man asks Mama for her youngest daughter’s hand in marriage. They are taken aback, however when she says no.  She uses the excuse that it is her family’s tradition for the youngest girl to remain single and take care of her mother, but she also is unable to stand the thought of this unwanted child being happy when she is so bitter.  Further, to assure that Tita will know great misery, Mama arranges for Pedro to marry Rosaura, a proposition that he accepts because it assures him a chance to remain close to Tita.  Lastly, Mama forbids young Tita to cry over losing the love of her life and relegates her to a position of servitude.  Ever-obedient, Tita passively acquiesces to her mother’s decree and does her best to remain dry-eyed as she cleans the house and washes laundry.  At night when she is alone in her room *knitting a marital bedspread she will never need, however, the girl lets the tears flow. (*The movie uses the word knit although the actress crochets.)    

Another of Tita’s new responsibilities is food preparation.  Nacha teaches her how to cook, an art that she takes to easily, but along with combining standard ingredients, she inadvertently infuses the dishes with her pent-up emotions.  Thus, when her irrepressible tears fall into the batter of Rosaura’s and Pedro’s wedding cake, everyone who eats the confection becomes sad.  Nacha dies on the evening of Rosaura’s wedding and is soon replaced by Chencha (Pilar Aranda), but Tita remains in charge of food preparation.  One day, Pedro gives her a bouquet of roses.  Mama insists she that throw them out, but instead she decides to make Quail with Rose Sauce while daydreaming about being with Pedro.  Later as the family is eating, they all start to feel aroused.  Gertrudis becomes so horny, in fact, that she runs outside to shower, and the steam from her is so hot that the shed bursts into flame.  To avoid being burned up, she runs across the fields stark naked and encounters Juan Alejándrez (Rodolfo Arias), a handsome soldier of the revolution who happens to be riding by.  She reaches for him, he lifts her onto his horse, and they ride away clasped in an erotic embrace. 

Pedro delays consummating his marriage to Rosaura for months, but eventually runs out of excuses.  Shortly thereafter she becomes pregnant.  She bears a son whom they name Roberto, but the labor leaves her too weak to nurse him.  Even though Tita resents her sister for marrying Pedro, she loves the baby deeply enough to start producing breast milk.  Keeping this miracle a secret, she nurses the baby on the sly while Pedro looks on.  Remembering her own infidelity, Mama keeps a close eye on her son-in-law and youngest daughter and when it’s evident they are still in love, she sends Rosaura and her family to live with relatives in San Antonio.  As usual, Tita keeps her feelings to herself, but when word arrives that Roberto has died, probably as a result of Rosaura’s inability to nurse, she flies into a rage blaming her mother for the baby’s death.  Mama slaps her for being so insolent, and she runs outside and climbs into the bird tower to grieve. 

Inconsolable, she stays there for days naked and uncommunicative.  Desperate to get her help, Chencha appeals to family physician Dr. John Brown (Mario Ivan Martinez), a gentle man who has always been secretly in love with Tita.  He comes to the ranch, gathers her up, and carries her away to his home in Texas where he lives with his son, Alex (Andres Garcia, Jr. as an adult, Rafael Garcia Zuazua as a child).   John, who is patient and wise, tells Tita that love is like an internal fire that must be fed slowly and carefully to prevent it from bursting into a deadly flame.  Over time his tenderness along with distance from her mother, leads to Tita’s recovery.  Seeing his chance, John proposes, and she says yes. 

With all of the children gone, Mama and Chencha are often home alone, and one day a group of bandits attacks the ranch, rapes Chencha, and kills the old woman by pushing her off a cliff.  Tita and Dr. Brown go back for the funeral and soon Pedro and a very pregnant Rosaura arrive.  After another difficult labor Rosaura gives birth to a baby girl that she names Esperanza (Sandra Arau as an adult, Melisa Mares as a child).  Unfortunately, Dr. Brown says that she cannot have any more children, which means the baby will be doomed to the same servile fate as her aunt. It soon comes out that Tita and Dr. Brown are engaged, and when Pedro learns of this, he sneaks into Tita’s room and seduces her.  She becomes convinced she is pregnant, but although the prediction turns out to be wrong, the incident convinces her to break off the engagement.  John takes the news like a gentleman and returns to Texas hoping she’ll change her mind.

Since Rosaura inherited the ranch when her mother died, she is able to threaten Tita with eviction to keep her away from Pedro.  Tita, who can always return to John, complies not due to a fear of homelessness, but so she can remain at the ranch and protect her niece from the curse that ruined her life.  She doesn’t have to wait long because Rosaura has been in failing health since the baby’s birth, and soon dies.  The next thing you know, it is twenty-two years later, and women are preparing a feast for Esperanza’s and Alex’s wedding.  After the couple is married, everyone departs except Pedro and Tita who are free to act on their love at last.  Pedro sets up a bed in the barn and decorates the room with dozens of flickering candles, but the sex between them is so intense that he has a heart attack and dies.  

Remembering what John told her about love being an internal fire, Tita begins eating matches one after the other until she bursts into flames so uncontrollable, they consume the entire estate.  When Esperanza and Alex return from their honeymoon, the only thing left intact is Tita’s diary.  Esperanza keeps it and passes it down to her descendants, until it reaches Bisnieta, bringing us full circle to the beginning of the story.

 

Thoughts

Like Water for Chocolate clearly is a tragic love story but it is so much more than that.  It is a critique of the social norms that hold Mexican females back and a celebration of those who defy the rules.  By forcing Tita to give up Pedro and forbidding her to express what she’s feeling, Mama represents a tradition that denies women the rights to make their own decisions and to express themselves verbally and sexually.   Tita’s victimization is obvious, but you should not overlook the fact that Rosaura is wronged as well.  Mama trades her off to a man that doesn’t want her, then keeps her in the same house as Tita where she is powerless to stop her husband from mooning over his lost love.  

In fact, the only one of Mama’s daughters to find happiness is Gertrudis.  Conceived out of love rather than obligation, Gertrudis is a happy child who grows into a fulfilled adult.  She embraces all of the joys that life offers by running off with the leader of the revolutionary army, becoming a General who commands male troops, and reveling in an exciting carnal relationship with her husband.  Appalled with what is going on under her mother’s roof, Gertrudis pushes Tita to confess her love to Pedro which would not only end her misery but would also set Rosaura free to pursue a life of contentment.  Meanwhile, Pedro encapsulates the stereotypical macho male, a cad who preens at knowing he is the subject of the competition that reigns between his wife and her sister.  Being a wealthy heiress, Rosaura affords her husband a life of leisure without him having to work and her sister Tita provides him with a convenient piece of ass on the side. 

Tita’s willingness to be the victim of unrequited love is troubling, although it’s easy to understand the passivity once you consider her role models.  Her mother, who was furious about being forced to marry a man she didn’t love, took her rage out on her children and her oldest sister Rosaura was an obedient wimp.  The cook Nacha was warm and understanding but powerless to offer Tita aid.  Gertrudis would have provided a perfect example of a woman who forged her own path, but she was gone.  To make matters worse, Tita didn’t have a positive male role model because her father was a weak man who dropped dead just because his wife hurt his feelings.  This lack of familiarity with the way of men made it difficult for Tita to see through Pedro’s manipulations, and impossible for her to appreciate John for the strong husband he would have been.        

I looked on the web but couldn’t find anything about Mexican traditions that forbid youngest daughters to marry.  In fact, it appears that the situation is quite the opposite.  Many girls in Mexico marry before they are eighteen, a trend that is actually becoming more common.  Even though a law was enacted in 2014 stipulating eighteen as the marital age for females, Mexican states do not have to adhere to the rule and many territories allow girls to marry when they are fourteen or younger.  When they do, they tend to drop out of school and immediately start having children.  Nevertheless, the movie’s message is still significant because it challenges a culture which limits women’s choices and denies them independence.  The only daughter in the story to find happiness was rebellious Gertrudis, the child of the illicit affair Mama had with the only man she ever loved.  Think how different the ending would have been if Elena had defied tradition and run away with her lover rather than obeying her parents and marrying Juan de la Garza.  https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2017/may/02/mexico-lost-generation-young-girls-innocence-education.

Conclusion

These movies are easy to find if you know where to look.  Volver, which has an overall 90% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, is readily available to stream on the usual platforms;  You can buy the DVD from places like Amazon and eBay for $8 or less.  Just be sure that the one you choose is for Region 1.  Like Water for Chocolate, which won ten Ariel awards and was nominated for the Golden Globe Best Foreign Language Film, has a rating of 7.1 on IMDB and an average of 85% on Rotten Tomatoes.  It is also streaming on many services, is on HBO Max if you have a subscription, or can be viewed for free on YouTube.   Both movies are in Spanish with English subtitles.

There are many other movies made in Latin counties that are worth watching.  If you want to see something else featuring Señor Parra, for instance, you can watch the Colombian film noir The Vanished Elephant.  Another movie that comes highly recommended is the Argentinian film The Official Story, which won both the Golden Globe and Academy Award for Best Foreign Film in 1986.  Both movies are streaming free on YouTube.  You can also go online and search for other Latin films that sound interesting to you.  If you would rather watch something made in the United States, award-winning movies include Real Women Have Curves starring American Ferrera and the Milagro Beanfield War with Reuben Blades.  Cheech Marine’s first solo project Born in East LA is an enjoyable way to see how an American-born Hispanic interprets the Latin experience in the United States.  

There are also American-Born actors of Hispanic descent that the Academy has recognized.  Edward James Olmos was nominated for Stand and Deliver (1988) and Hillary Swank won for Boys Don’t Cry (1999) and Million Dollar Baby (2004).  Both are of Mexican descent.  Best Supporting Actor nominations have gone to Spanish descendant Thomas Gomez for Ride the Pink Horse (1947), Mexican descendant Susan Kohner for Imitation of Life (1959) and Puerto Rican descendant Rosie Perez for Fearless (1993).  Finally, Cuban descendant Mercedes Ruhl won the Oscar for playing Anne in The Fisher King (1991), a movie that I blogged about in October 2019. 

Other excellent films have cast non-Hispanics in Latin roles.  These include: West Side Story with Natalie Wood as Maria, Evita with Madonna as Eva Peron, La Bamba with Lou Diamond Phillips as Rickie Valens, Scarface with Al Pacino as Tony Montanag.  The House of the Spirits casts white non-Hispanics in the top starring roles: Meryl Streep as Clara, Jeremy Irons as Esteban, Glenn Close as Ferula, and Winona Ryder as Blanca.  I have mixed feelings about these because they are all good movies, most of which have some Magical Realism thrown in, but watching them kind of feels like cheating.  Perhaps Hispanic producers should consider remaking them using Latin actors, so we can enjoy them without feeling guilt. 

Next time I will begin discussing films either using Asian actors or telling stories that take place in Asia.  I haven’t made any firm decisions, but I’m pondering how many posts to write.  Asia encapsulates numerous cultures that extend from the Far East (Japan, Taiwan, China) to the Middle East (Egypt, Israel, Jordan), to Southeast Asia (Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia) and to Southern Asia (India, Nepal, Afghanistan, Pakistan).  Furthermore, the designation between continents can be tricky.  I’ll narrow things down after I do some research.  Until then, Vaya con Dios.