Lucia, Lucia

Writers are driving me crazy: In `Adaptation' Nicolas Cage was barely sane struggling with his inspiration and incendiary companions, true or otherwise; in `Swimming Pool,' Charlotte Rampling created a plausible fiction of a dangerous female border and Rampling's desire to make real the murders she wrote.

Antonio Serrano's `Lucia, Lucia' is set in Mexico with a children's writer, Lucia (Cecilia Roth from Almodovar's `All about My Mother'), admitting in voiceover her fictions about her life, establishing herself as an unreliable narrator about the kidnapping of her husband, her attempts to recover him, an affair with a younger man, and a friendship with an older man. Initially I was put off by her lies because a mystery needs a reliable narrator, but as I accepted her creative effort to describe the middle-aged crisis through these fictions, I settled into an aesthetic trance that sees clearly the symbolism of each character relating to her changes of life. Her observation that heaven must be a moment of sex frozen in time is one of the interesting insights these varied experiences brought to her.

Involved in the kidnapping is a rebel gang patterned after the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) prominent about 30 years ago in Mexico. This plot to deliver the ransom money to the gang is so complicated that even the playful plots of `Y Tu mama Tambien' and `Amores Perros' seem simple by contrast. The inclusion of a corrupt government in the kidnapping is confusing and certainly adds no allegorical insight given the historically corrupt governments of Mexico.

The Spanish version of this film is called `The Cannibal's Daughter,' a much more daring and figuratively descriptive title for Lucia's consuming life. Actually, her actor father once played a cannibal and mother sees marriage as sharing life with the living dead. It's easy to see why Lucia questions her marriage and warily enters into relationships with the passionate young man and politically-romantic older man. At the least in her story, she is experiencing what the bard predicted when he said of middle age:

`Thou hast nor youth, nor age, But as it were an after-dinner's sleep Dreaming on both.'

In the end, the story turns nicely on the evolution of a soul who accepts life and her place in it as a writer whose imagination helps her find peace. The men may lose her, but she finds herself.

I avoided seeing this movie for a long time, simply because I was tired of being let down by bad mexican cinema. After seeing the huge marketing campaign behind it and noticing that it had the same director/writer of Sexo, Pudor Y Lagrimas, I decided to give it a shot. Big mistake, this is a mess of a movie, the plot, the dialogue, the paper thin characters. Not one of the elements that made Sexo, Pudor Y lagrimas translated, the only thing that remained were the preachy monologues and overall pretentiousness.

I just finished watching the movie, I saw it at the blockbuster store and didn't want to rent it because I thought it was really bad, however, I just rented it anyways.... I am not going to tell you what this movie is about, but what I think about the movie (I have never studied cinema or anything, so, please tae this just as a comment from an excentric person)

This movie has the lost mexican touch from the seventies, with the political yell from this decade (2000-2009). Funny indeed, but also dramatical and

superficial, with the magical mexican touch of surrealism (which Jodorowsky

excelled in his films, shooted in Mexico, like El Topo and Holy Mountain)

The political yell I am referring here is the one that has come out in cinema in mexico this decade, in movies that include: La ley de Herodes (Herodes' Law)

among others. It is NOT a Hollywood movie, so please do not expect a huge budget movie

with huge SFX, instead a more tight budget movie, with a nice story to tell

This movie is once again the reflection of the mexican society:

First of all: The magic and beauty of the unbeauty that comes from surrealism, which is the same as Mexico and it's people, how they live and think, which is a surreal way of thinking, and as most of us think surrealistic, the mexican culture and society tend to be more surreal (giving you a fantastic photography of the horrible but beautiful)

Secondly: The political yell; this is because of the oppression and corruption mexican people had to suffer all these years, where they just work oppressively receiving nothing but LESS buying power and MORE frustration (this is related once again to surrealism), where only a few are priviliged (this is a lot more notable when you go south of America) Political screams is an escape valve to that oppression, and this movie is one of that kind

If you have had the chance to see mexican cinema, this is a nice example (not the best, though) to watch it. I may just dare to say this movie is a lot like the french cinema, only with less introspectiveness (as the french cinema tends to be [not all of it of course, but it's a cultural thing, which gives a flavor to each cinema of the world])

Well... all in all this movie is a Superb, with brilliant direction and photography, however, not very appreciated by some critics..... ...by the way, I almost forgot to tell you, I loved the way the movie begins

Antonio Serrano has to be commended in bringing this film to the screen. Unfortunately, the finished product leaves a lot to be desired. The script based on Rosa Montero's novel, The Daughter of the Cannibal, turns out to be an enigma with a lot of questions not being answered.

Cecilia Roth makes this film comes alive. She is the only thing going for this strange tale of deceit that, at times, doesn't make a lot of sense. Ms Roth is the only excuse for seeing this uneven movie.

The underlying theme is how greed affects innocent people. Also, how Lucia's marriage of more than ten years has been a sham. Ramon, her missing husband, obviously, can't perform in the sack. Cecilia is a very unfulfilled woman until the 'hunky' Felix comes into the picture and is able to get some life out this woman. Felix awakes feelings within Lucia she didn'n know she had, but alas, it's too late for her to undergo another relationship, with Felix, or anyone else.

This film kept reminding this viewer of another, and better Mexican film, "Y tu mama tambien", in that there's is a trio embarked in a quest along the Mexican highways. Lucia, Lucia, never achieves the magic of that other picture, but it's a very nice effort, which keeps the viewer hoping it will get there as well.

If you expect the plot in this Mexican pseudo-thriller to make sense, or be suspenseful, you are bound to be disappointed. The crux of this movie are the relationships and mid-life recentering that go on in Lucia's (Cecilia Roth) life. Her husband disappears, and she rushes to find him. Along the way she is befriended by an old ex-rebel communist and a young man who falls in love with her despite her wishes otherwise. These two friends come to take precedence in her life as she realized she doesn't really like her husband, and wants to live her own life. When she eventually tracks down her husband, she wishes him well and they go their separate ways. I didn't dislike the film even despite its weakness. I was interested to see how Lucia discovered herself and grew closer to and pushed away those around her.

This movie is like a veggie burger with eggplant in place of beef, covered in lettuce and tomatoes and sauce. When you first bite in, the first thing you taste is the bun and the lettuce. Then as you chew, you see that there is sauce, tomato and eggplant, but no meat. Try as you might, it's just not the same without meat. It might be not be disappointing if it were packaged a salad between bread, but as a substitute for a burger, it just doesn't satisfy. 5/10

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