Pas de lettre pour le colonel

This is a truly magnificent and heartwrenching film!!!! Ripstein's locations are spectacular, extremely detailed and well lit, the dialogue is extraordinarily García Márquez, no doubt about it. Fernando Luján and Marisa Paredes give us outstanding performances as the colonel and his wife.

You must see it!!!

a bit slow and boring, the tale of an old man and his wife living a delapidated building and interacting with a fixed cast of characters like the mailman, the brothers sitting on the porch, the wealthy cigar smoking man. The photography of the river is marvelous, as is the interior period decoration. If you like decoration of Banana Republic stores, this is a must.

If you have never read any of the author's books and wanted a taste of them before reading any and what you did was to watch this movie, you probably will stop one fourth or so into the movie wondering what the hell? Should you wish to discourage someone from ever reading any of the books, show them this film. Admittedly it would be a challenge to put the Buendías on the screen -and it would be amusing to see it done with Hollywood megabucks- but it would have juice and entice curiosity -this one doesn't. This movie can only be appreciated and liked -not enjoyed- after becoming familiar with the author's wider work. There's a movie version of a story by García Márquez (Yo solo vine a hablar por teléfono)with a memorable nurse Ratched on steroids in it, María de mi corazón, which I'd say you can start with. Then you can try this one.

A sober, reflexive piece, a little miniature which blossoms into a magnificent humane pictorial sequence which goes beyond a mere dramatization for the screen. This quiet little story will hold you enthralled - if you do not have too many problems with the various Spanish accents ranging from Mexican to Peruvian, and Marisa Paredes' more authentic Iberian Peninsular usage! Garcíadiego has accomplished a perfect adaptation from the novel: even the grand maestro García Márquez should be proud of her superb work. And hats off to Arturo Ripstein who has so ably concerted the whole effort into a gem, a ruby, and so refined, so elegant, so sensitive, so touchingly.....

El Coronel - Fernando Luján - is waiting to get his pension, while he continues to live in his ramshackle timber dwelling deep in the Colombian jungle (however, filmed elsewhere, NOT in Colombia) with his fighting cock and his wife (in that order?). And that is all there is to it.

But, oh, so much more.... This film is a rhapsody.

I must see this poetic little piece again as soon as possible. Worth the high side of 8 out of 10, which is very high on my scale.

This is not light commercial Hollywood stuff.

Full disclosure: I have never read the book on which "El coronel no tiene quien le escriba" ("No One Writes to the Colonel" in English) is based. Even so, the movie is an impressive piece of work, with Fernando Luján as the war veteran who keeps expecting his pension.

This is the first Arturo Ripstein movie that I've seen. I hope to see more of his work, and I hope to read more of Gabriel García Márquez's work (I've only read "One Hundred Years of Solitude").

The plot's subtlety and the complex characters amount to a great story. Definitely see it.