Santitos

I had lost my faith in national productions after "El coronel no tiene quien le escriba" and "Un embrujo". Santitos made me believe in mexican films again!It's a wonderful road movie about faith and sacrifice. Really funny, with great photography work and excellent actors. If you've watched mexican movies from the last decade, you'll know all of them are about poverty and misery, a depressing look at Mexico. But Santitos is like a ray of light in a dark national film industry.

Don't miss it!

After St. Jude appears in Esperanza's oven, she sets out to find her daughter, who died under mysterious circumstances. The journey forces Esperanza to challenge her own beliefs and face her fears in order to be reunited with her beloved daughter.

The film is full of humor, sorrow, oddball characters, bizarre situations and danger. Through it all is an underlying message of the power that love has to change us all in the most unexpected ways.

A visual treat too, "Santitos" paints a beautiful, funny and compassionate picture of Mexico. But director Springall doesn't isolate his message. We all know at least one of the characters, and have probably visited similar places. This connection to the world outside of Esperanza, Veracruz and Mexico is what manages to touch us all.

This is really an excellent movie. I was very surprised to read the great reviews it got in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Sun-Times, Dallas Morning News, New York Daily News, Time Out, LA Weekly, Movie Maker, etc. Incredible reviews appeared on most newspapers in Spain as well. I highly reccomend to see this fun picture becauser the story is unique, the acting superb, and the light-hearted way of telling this story is unforgettable. Don't miss this classic

I really wanted to like this film. The advertising really fooled me--I believed I was going to see another "Como Agua Para Chocolate." Wrong!

The movie starts wonderfully. Esperanza's refuses to believe her recently deceased daughter is really dead and starts to search for her. First in her beautiful little town in the Veracruz state of Mexico, then Tijuana, followed by LA, and back to her hometown.

Her journey was supposed to show how Esperanza changes and becomes a stronger person, but the lead actress--Dolores Heredia--was unable to do so. This is not so much her fault as she is quite appealing: I believe that the directors development of side characters and subplots take the focus away from the character development of Esperanza.

This film is not without merit. The cinematography by Xavier Perez Grobet is top-notch, as well as the art direction. This film is a step in the right direction for contemporary Mexican film, but it still has a way to go.

I see the intention of the film, thus we live in Mexico (as in Mexican culture) in a surreal world but still the director should develop a personal style. I have never been so impressed with David Lynch's films or any other that portray scenery in which quiet, innocent lifestyles and characters are mixed with underground dark worlds and also characters. Why? because it is reality in Mexican culture , you see people devoted to saints yet they are part of drug cartels or they are dangerous murderers. You can also have the most beautiful neighborhoods in the world and a few feet away the poorest in the world, it is full of contrasts in textures in which if you apply the juxtaposition technique of Lynch you get a lynch film and that is what Santitos do, yet we have to develop a new way to attack this reality, it is too easy to go lynch's way.