The Blue Room

I always watch a Mexican movie with some of condescendent attitude, lowering my expectations so I cannot be too tough in my final judgment. I had no idea what the plot was and the very tag line plus today's Mexican show business hype promised something like an "evolved-but-limited" achievement.

But this movie impressed me *a lot*. I, as a Mexican person, love intensively those movies in which characters are developed in such way I catch myself thinking something like "yeah, that folk is like my old pal Miguel", or "those places definitely remind me childhood", and not that kind of plots with funny acting clichés that are intended to muck American movies.

Erotism has been a prime element in Mexican movies for so many years... but now we can thank G-d the days of cabaret, double-sense talk, erroneous poverty portrayals and sex with no obstacles are past.

In this movie, sexual intercourse is not of a climatic taste, but the seed of inevitable events whose consequences are rather bizarre.

I would spoil it if I said more. See it, enjoy it.

The movie takes place in a little town in Mexico where two friends meet after ten years, they are both married now and one of them works for his Mom in a little country store and the other one starts seeing his wife after one meeting in the woods. the movie starts to build up after one of the friends is caught and questioned by the police for murder? As a Mexican film fan, we are always bound to look for a improvement in the mexican scene, mostly because either movies are about sex or drugs, and that is not what the whole country is about. Aside from the fact that this movie deals with some sex scenes that rule the outcome of the movie, I was disappointed to "see" the ending long before it happened, and even though you get a great feeling for your premonition powers you also get an uneasy feeling of "deja vu", not that the acting isn't worth it, it just doesn't fill your expectations.

If you ever had the chance to watch more than one episode from a mexican soapbox opera, then you've seen this movie already. This "film" caused such a bliss here in México just because the female lead role, Patricia Llaca, appears full naked at the beginning; you wanna know what's the worst thing about it? that the nakedness doesn't play any key role on the developing of the plot beyond letting us know that two people are having a sexually driven affair. The same dialogue could have been chat in a café, playing tennis or just smoking, and everything would have been the same. And both parts are married by the way, and I'm not quite sure if that's why the producers said that the film was on the brink from being censured (?), or was it because the movie poster has a photo that shows Llaca's butt cheeks? I mean, come on! I really hope that any foreign people who get to read this doesn't get the wrong impression of mexican culture, thinking about us as retrogressive people 'cause we're not. Well, maybe just a little fraction of our society. But let's move on to the film.

First of all, I wanna let know that there's some very good mexican movies out there that I love, so it's not that I dislike in prejudice everything done in here, but, really, watching La habitación azul was a big mistake. Most part of the actors are from the soapbox opera mafia that controls our TV media -which means they can hardly act-, so I should've been warned by that; but then, there´s also in La habitación... a couple of good actors -like Damián Alcázar- that I enjoy watching at work. But then again, it seems that mediocrity -starting from the director´s own- surpassed by much the talent of the few brilliant involved, so the result is a boring movie that even some people have the nerve to call "a thriller". Is La habitación azul a thriller? then where was the thrill? or did I get lost? when? Suspense has the book The blue room by George Simenon, in which the movie is based upon, but this film a thriller? I don´t think so. It's nothing but a bunch of fake drama and zero suspense, no twists, no key parts demanding our brain to work, and no thrills at all!!!!! By half the movie we had lost any interest we may have had about the characters and their so in risk future. Of course there are some minor intrigues, absurd killings, and shallow secrets, but that doesn't create suspense by themselves, these are just TOOLS waiting for someone that can handle them in a wise manner, and based on the facts, Doehner couldn't. La habitación azul is nothing more than the usual stuff we get to see via those brainless, dramaless and hollow episodes of each soapbox opera that our TV networks puts on the air.

La habitacion Azul is an everyday story, it shows us nothing different from real life events. The rhythm is incredibly monotonous and totally predictable. The cast is OK but I think mexican productions are in great need of new talent, the same actor appear in several movies and all of a sudden you don't know you're watching a different one. I like to go to the movie theater to see something different, out of the ordinary, stories that challenge the imaginations, that go further than what we live.

Judging for the posters and trailers on TV, I thought I was gonna see sex, a great story, lots of nudity, sex and even more sex on this film... and I did, sort of. But all this is easily forgotten as the film goes on, 'cause the story is wonderfully told, jumping back and forth in time, but you never miss the present time. The twist the movie takes at the end was quickly catched by my brain, but that was the very minute that happened... I don't know if you understood me, but all this mess I just wrote was to tell you that by no excuse you should miss this movie, it is good to see a good mexican movie, with a great story that, by the way, anybody can be the star, sort of.