The Good Herbs

I saw this Mexican film during last year's Latino Film Festival.

A single mother Dalia works at an alternative radio station, and has a mother who is a botanist. The story is divided in sections with placecards showing different plants with remedies for symptoms that refer to the events or emotions of the film.

Dalia often writes down phrases or words she hears that she finds interesting, sticking them on her wall or in books or even writing on the walls themselves, which later is reflected in signs she posts for her mother to remember what things are when the older lady begins to suffer from Alzheimer's. Her mother's quick decline leaves Dalia at a loss of how to help her and Dalia becomes more and more frustrated.

CLFF 2013: In the Middle of Heaven

This plot could easily be transported to any country. An office executive Andrea at a design and advertising firm barely sees the janitor Gualberto who works at her building. She is a A-type personality but her boss challenges her to deliver a project much sooner than expected. Although she is only in her thirties, she sees the writing on the wall when he also gives a younger attractive rival the same opportunity, so Andrea needs to work all weekend to deliver. Unfortunately it is her birthday this weekend, and her best friend, who is also her trusted assistant, has to remind her which restaurant her boyfriend is meeting her at. Her friend/assistant encourages her to take some time to celebrate but Andrea angrily responds that she is not dedicated like herself to work on the weekend, and their friendship is tested.

After a bit Andrea feels guilty about breaking her birthday date with her boyfriend, but spills something on her blouse at the office and attempts to wash it before the date. She goes up on the roof of the office building to hang up her blouse to dry, but does not realize that the door that was propped open locks from the inside. Gualberto's colleagues had propped it open so that he could exit, as he was cleaning up for the night in a roof shed. Of course she closes the door in order not to be seen without her blouse.

As expected, once she and Gualberto are trapped on the roof, Andrea throws her weight around, making assumptions about Gualberto's intelligence, class etc. Gualberto good-naturedly takes it all in stride as he's seen these types of personalities before, and actually tries to help the ungrateful Andrea by offering her a soccer team flag as a blanket, or sharing his apple for a meal, or scrounging up an old tortilla to cook on his camp stove, as the night goes on.

There are a couple opportunities to call for help when Andrea's boyfriend comes to look for her, or when they throw a water bottle to a passerby, or when they try to get the attention of someone in the apartment building across the street, but all are unsuccessful. They both talk about their families--Gualberto's daughter whom he tries to instill his love of soccer to, and Andrea's father who tried to do the same to her. They find common ground when Andrea admits to Gualberto that she only pretended to like soccer to spend time with her dad and suggests Gualberto treat his daughter more like a girl than a boy.

Bless Me, Ultima

This Mexican-themed coming-of-age film, which also touches on religion and mysticism, is based on a book of the same name by Rudolfo Anaya, apparently banned in some schools for its pagan depictions. The story is told from the point of view of its young protagonist, Antonio (Luke Ganalon). It tells of the year or two when Ultima, an old woman and friend of the family, comes to spend her final years in New Mexico with them. The story stars an all-Hispanic cast of mostly unfamiliar (to me) actors. I believe Alfred Molina narrates as the adult Antonio.

The story takes place in 1944. Antonio and his sisters have it in their heads that Ultima is a bruja, a witch. But she says she is only a curandera, a healer, and this is borne out a few times during the film when she uses her knowledge of plant lore to save the sick and dying. But, Ultima also uses voodoo-like rituals and this witchlike behavior makes her a bit feared among the Catholic-religious Mexicans who live here.

Antonio’s father has dreams of moving from New Mexico to California where he hopes for a better life. Antonio’s mother comes from a family of farmers and is content to stay here where her father and brothers are close. Since it is in the era of World War 2, Antonio also has several older brothers, barely men themselves, who are fighting in the war, soon to return home.

We see Ultima teaching Antonio plant lore, and he witnesses both tragic and happy incidents involving his family and community. An uncle was unlucky to chance upon some local sisters in the night, who are suspected to be witches, and falls ill because of it, but Ultima cures him. This angers the sisters’ father Tenorio, a powerful man who vows vengeance on Ultima when one of his daughters dies, he believes from Ultima’s curse.

Antonio grows up and starts school, has scrapes with friends. His young uncles have wanderlust and want to migrate elsewhere to start their own lives. Summers are spent harvesting on the mother's family's farm. Antonio's father makes a stand to protect his family and Ultima, but her last days are spent with Antonio’s family as she vowed.

Free event: My Mexican Shivah

Morirse esta en Hebreo (My Mexican Shivah)
Tuesday, January 8, 2012
6:00 p.m.
UNAM (Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico)
350 W. Erie Street

This comedy Mexican Jews who have to perform shivah, a funeral/death rite, when one of them dies. Many of the deceased’s friends and family gather to see him off, but they are all petty and selfish with their own agendas for being there. Meanwhile, two Jewish “angels” watch over them, adding up points for and against the deceased, to see where he will end up, in heaven or hell.

I was hoping this would show me some cultural differences or show the mix of these two cultures I haven’t seen together before. The comedy tends to instead show stereotyped characters such as that Hispanics are lovers and Jews are money grubbers. Here and there were interesting characters or a small storyline that was interesting.

Free event: The Prize

In this film from Mexico, a mother and daughter leave Buenos Aires while it is under military rule. At the daughte's new school, students are asked to write a patriotic essay on those same dictators who may have made her father "disappear."

The Prize
Thursday, December 13, 2012
6:00 p.m.
Chicago Public Library, Lincoln Belmont Public Library
1659 W. Melrose Street

For Greater Glory

There is so much history that is recent and yet I know nothing about.  This story tells about our neighbor down south.  It takes place in 1920s Mexico, when rebels known as Cristiada fight back after the Mexican government (whose President is played by Ruben Blades) outlaws religious freedom.  The government fears, since many of the religious leaders come from Rome and other foreign places, that outside influences will turn the citizens against the government. Soon foreign religious leaders are booted out and their continuing presence is restricted (including an old priest played by Peter O'Toole).

What the government didn't think would happen, happens.  The people band together in secret and while at first are a bunch of unconnected factions, finally decide they need to be cohesive; they hire a non-religious former general to lead their military strategy (played by Andy Garcia). He of course conflicts with a hothead (Oscar Isaac), discusses the religious fight with a priest soldier, and takes under his wing a boy who leaves his family to fight and whose death for the cause eventually led to him being beatified (a pretty good young actor, Mauricio Kuri). With Eva Longoria in a decent dramatic role as the general's wife. Many of these main characters are based on real historical figures.

Get the Gringo

This is a new Mel Gibson film, but was released in May through video-on-demand via DirecTV and not traditional theatres (at least for now).

The plot involves an American lifetime criminal played by Gibson, who is unnamed (but known in the credits as The Driver) who with his partner has apparently stolen a huge amount of money right by the Mexican border.  He crashes his getaway car through the fence dividing the U.S. and Mexico. Mexico is well-known for its corrupt police forces, so the Mexican officers see the stacks of money and innocently state they will take this case, now that the robbers are on their soil. They throw the Driver into a prison called El Pueblito (modeled after real prisons in Mexico). El Pueblito, as per its name, is a little town, where you can buy anything, has many services--even illegal ones, and as a character says, “the world’s worst mall” is an apt description of this setting. Prisoners can also pay to have their families live with them, so that the family unit can stay together (yeah, I don’t know who thought this was a good thing nor how it punishes the prisoner). 
Driver bides his time to make an escape, by observing everyone and studying the hierarchy in El Pueblito.  Despite its restrictive setting, there is a lot of money moving around El Pueblito, much of it passing through the hands of a big shot criminal, Javi (Daniel Gimenez Cacho), who gets to come and go as he pleases and takes his cut off every deal that goes on. His lackeys are his brother and cousin.

Another guy, Bill (Dean Norris), some sort of shady government lawyer, tries to get Driver out of prison in trade for a cut of the money that was stolen. But Driver is not interested in working with anyone but himself.

Other key characters are a widow and her son (Dolores Heredia, Kevin Hernandez, known as the kid and the kid’s mother). The kid sees Driver observing everyone, as well as Driver's ingenious robbery of a drug dealer during a fire, and the Driver grudgingly takes the kid under his wing. The kid reveals a hatred of Javi due to Javi having his father killed for a despicable reason, that threatens the kid’s life too, but ironically Javi protects the kid’s life, at least for now. The Driver eventually mentors him as a father figure and helping him defeat Javi. 

The Other Side of Immigration

Oftentimes when returning from a late movie, I take the bus home through an area with a lot of night life, and I see lone Hispanic guys taking the bus too. I assume they are bar and restaurant workers probably working for low wages, and are pretty invisible to the loud drinkers partying in the area where they serve behind the scenes. I can't imagine that much of the profit of $5 martinis and corresponding tips end up in their pockets. They always seem very polite and quiet, and just seem to want to do their job and be left alone and go home after a long night's work.

This doc visits rural parts of Mexico and interviews many people about their views and opinions about immigration, especially as it relates to the U.S. The culture in Mexico is as you expect--poverty, corruption, political nepotism, lack of economic growth.

Backyard

This Mexican police drama takes place in Juarez, just across the American border. A policewoman investigates who has been killing women and leaving their bodies in the desert. Many of the victims are low paid workers in American factories in Mexico. The detective also has to struggle against sexual discrimination on the job, the police's old boy network, as well as Mexico's high police and government corruption. From the victim's side of the story, the film also focuses on one such naive woman who makes some bad choices and leads her to trouble. There is also a talk radio deejay who comments on the killings and police corruption.