Love of My Lives aka Amor de Mis Amor

With just one week away before he gets married to his fiancee Lucía, Carlos jumps on a plane to Madrid to convince his best friend to come back with him to Mexico to attend the wedding. Javier has been ignoring all his phone calls and emails so Carlos is worried that something dreadful may have happened to him.  Lucía none to pleased to be left alone to do the final planning, leaves the airport somewhat distracted and manages to accidentally run a cyclist over in her car.  

León is not too hurt but he insists on being taken to the hospital but is more interested in flirting with Lucia than listening to the doctors diagnosis. She tries to get him to stop by telling him of her impending nuptials, but despite her protestations it's clear that she is quite taken by this charming handsome stranger.  However what León fails to mention that he too is due to get married to Ana , who just happens to also be in Madrid this week working at an Art Show.

When he follows up with a phone call to Lucia next day and asks her out on a date she hesitates but finally refuses.  However when he asks her point blank if she believes in love at first sight, he has located her Achilles heal, and she relents and agrees to have dinner with him. She subsequently has second and third thoughts about the situation so ends up standing León up, only to have a chance encounter the very next day and she is a goner.  So is he too.

They both feel that this could be the 'real thing' and so want to cancel their respective weddings even though they are now just a few days away .  Will they really be able to walk away from a past they were immensely happy in right up until they met or will they really want to swept away by this fresh new romance?

This rather charming and very-easy-on-the-eye Latino romantic comedy complete with it's overlapping plot lines and none to subtle plot, is very engaging. All the very talented lead actors are as attractive as hell and its obviously that none of their characters are ever destined to end up single and sad.  High production values make this a cut above the rest in this genre,  and ensure that it is a perfect date movie for any hopeless romantic.

★★★★★★

THE GOLDEN DREAM aka 'La jaula de oro'

This story about Guatemalan teenagers trying to escape their life of poverty and illegally cross the Mexican Border after a long and arduous journey en route to the USA, is one of the saddest and most dispiriting I have seen in a very long time.  It starts with three friends Samuel, Juan and his girlfriend Sara who disguises herself as a boy, but a native Indian called Chaulk also latches on to them soon after they set out.

The first of their many frightening ordeals occurs in small Mexican town where the Police round them up and immediately deport them back to Guatemala, but not before they rob them of their few possessions and their boots.  They quickly find their way back to the Border but Samuel has already had enough and wants to go home.  Juan has taken an instant dislike to Chaulk who he thinks is after Sara, but she insists he travels with them, so they all set off again.

It's not too long before the train they have jumped on along with hundreds of would-be migrants is stopped by the Mexican Army, but this time the three of them manage to escape and seek refuge in a sugar plantation. Back on the train, and this time it is halted by a band of Drug Traffickers who relieve everyone of anything remotely saleable and capture all the women including Sara who is spotted despite her disguise. When the two boys try to save her they are viscously beaten up by the gang and left unconscious in the middle of nowhere.

Chaulk revives first as Juan's injuries are more severe and the young Indian carries him to safety and nurses him back to health. Soon they are back on another train yet again and are easily lulled into false sense of security by another Guatemalan kid who promises them a job with his Uncle as they will need money to pay smugglers for the final stretch of their journey. It is a trap and they are about to be held hostage for ransom but as this gang is led by a fellow Guatemalan, Juan is let free.  However as he won't leave without Chaulk as he had saved his life, he offers the Captors the few dollars he has to buy the Indian's freedom.

It is sadly not the end of all the dangerous obstacles they will have to overcome on this seemingly endless harrowing journey, and sad to say, only one of them will make their final destination in one piece.  It is in fact a US meat processing plant where he works long hours for a pittance along with all the other undocumented workers.

The movie's original title is 'Juala de Oro' which translates into 'Golden Cage' and this is exactly what the kids get for all their dreams. The US willingly accepts illegals cheap labor but will not allow them the proper papers to rise beyond this lowly position. Despite this, and the continual fear of being caught and deported every single day, there will be hundreds of thousands other kids like these, that will still risk their lives for the hope of a better existence.

Directed and co-written by Spanish filmmaker Diego Quemada-Díez (who was a cameraman on many of Ken Loach's movies) it has a beautiful backdrop of stunning Mexican and Guatemalan landscapes that sometimes makes you forget the sheer poverty and the hardships of its inhabitants.  The movie relies on amateur actors, but it is the sheer power of the story that makes it so watchable and also the reason it has won several awards including Un Certain Regard at Cannes Film Festival.

★★★★★★★★

NORA'S WILL

José divorced Nora his wife years ago, but he still lives in an apartment building right across from her in Mexico City. One day, he arrives at Nora’s apartment with frozen meat packages that the deliveryman had been instructed to drop off at his place as Nora was out. Jose discovers that she is actually out of it completely as, after some 30 years of attempting suicide, she has finally managed to succeed.  However the process to bury her though turns out to be more difficult than he thinks as Nora is an observant Jew but as this is the eve of Passover she cannot be buried for 4 days.

This kicks of a whole series of comings and going at the Apartment with Jose constantly opening the front door of the stream of visitors. The officious Rabbi Jacowitz swoops in with his Orthodox ream that come to prepare the body and the apartment for the Shiva, but then retracts his help once he discovers the cause of Nora’s death, which means she cannot be buried in a Jewish Cemetery. Unless of course Jose makes a hefty donation to the Synagogue, and then the Rabbi will make an exception. This however is not something that Jose a lapsed Jew, who taunts the Rabbi by offering him  ham pizza, will ever agree to do.

As Jose starts to nose around the apartment he soon learns that Nora had made all arrangements for her traditional Passover dinner with a mountain of Tupperware containers all properly labeled in the refrigerator. She has left detailed recipes for her Maid and has also invited her sister to come help cook. But he also finds something that Nora had left out by accident and its an old photograph of her as a young woman who appears to be having a good time with another man, and suddenly Jose’s attitude to her changes.   He  now goes out of his way to book a Christian burial and when their Funeral Directors turn up, it causes more than a great deal of consternation for the Rabbi’s men.

Eventually Ruben their only son arrives home having cut short his vacation in the USA and he aggravates the situation further by trying to appease his conservative Jewish father-in-law rather than support Jose.

Billed as a black comedy (!) this gentle very human drama focuses on the family dynamics once its matriarch dies suddenly.  What makes the story so engaging is that newbie writer/director Mariana Chenillo focuses on the roles that Nora played in their lives rather than who she was as a person, or on the rather grisly subject of suicide itself.  The very fact that she had planned her demise so meticously helped her family accept that it was really what she wanted to choose, although Jose still believed that Nora took this path purely to spite them all.

There are no histrionics or melodrama in the telling of the story which is underscored by some fine well-rounded characters, particularly the gruff no-nonses Jose played by veteran actor Fernando Luján who picked up an Mexican Oscar for his performance.  In fact when the movie was first released in 2008 it picked up many awards including the Mexican Oscar Best Picture and Ms Chenillo became the first female to win Best Director.

This slow-burning drama with it’s wee touch of mystery was a great find.  I’m just sorry it took me a couple of years to get too it.

★★★★★★★★