Director: Fernando Frias
Writer: Fernando Frias
In Monterrey, Mexico, a 17 year-old young man named Ulisis (Juan Daniel Garcia Treviño) was the leader of a gang called "Los Terkos." He and his friends passionately loved and celebrated cumbia music and dance. Ulisis cut and colored his own hair into his own unique design and dressed in his own brand of loose baggy clothes.
When Ulisis got into conflicts with a rival gang, his mother pulled connections to smuggle Ulisis into the USA. He wound up in Brooklyn, New York, where he found temporary work cleaning the roof deck of an old Chinese man, whose teenage granddaughter Lin (Angelina Chen) tried to befriend Ulisis. The language and cultural barrier made it difficult for him to fit it.
This story was told back and forth in time, from the time Ulisis was still in Monterrey and when he was in Brooklyn. However, at first, it was challenge to get into the groove of the film, because of the confusing choices of editing that did not make it too engaging to watch in one sitting. This caused me to pause my viewing several times, only to be continued on another day, and this took a number of days.
The central character of Ulisis was not too likable for me, as well as the lazy gang lifestyle he led. However, you really have to admire his tenacious passion for his own unique musical and dance culture that made him eschew all others, resulting in a difficulty to adapt. Maybe it was this cultural pride it espoused that caused it to be chosen as Mexico's submission to the Oscars, instead of the much better "Identifying Figures." 6/10.
Directors: Aitor Arregi, Jon Garaño, Jose Mari Goenaga
Writers: Luiso Berdejo, Jose Mari Goenaga
It was the year 1936, the start of the Spanish Civil War. In Andalusia, a young tailor named Higinio Blanco (Antonio de la Torre) made critical comments against the government of Gen. Franco. When he learned that soldiers were looking to arrest him, he began hiding himself in a secret compartment in his house where he lived with his new wife Rosa (Belen Cuesta).
For the next several years, the Fascist regime intensified. His vengeful neighbor Gonzalo foiled an escape plan. Rosa was arrested for not revealing his location. She gave birth to a son, and he had already grown up to be a young man. Franco announced an amnesty for political crimes. Even through all of these events, Higinio still staunchly remained in hiding.
The title described the ordeal I had trying to finish this film. The pace of the film was so slow and the running time was so long that it took me several days to be able to finish the whole thing because of repeated pausing. Because Higinio was only in one cramped space most of the time, things felt claustrophobic and static, and the audience completely felt how he did as his only version of the world outside came from a peephole.
Both Antonio de la Torre and especially Belen Cuesta gave very passionate performances as their characters aged more than thirty years going through their respective versions of hell. In contrast to the seemingly interminable first two acts, the final act was strong as it brought us into Higinio traumatized psyche as he decided whether to finally come out of hiding or not. The directors (3 of them!) made sure we felt precious time passing by. 6/10.
No comments:
Post a Comment