Of Love and Shadows

Isabel Allende is not the greatest writer of all time, still she has a magic touch, of that there is no doubt..A woman that has fought all of her life, gives us the pleasure to enjoy her experience in this beautiful story (as are all of her stories), that brings together two great actors (Antonio and Jennifer), and almost makes us want to be part of it,despite the danger..these were the true heroes of our time, i think that's what she's really stating, by using simplicity as a way of being, a way of life, and showing us that it can also be beautiful.. A true love story.

Seems like any time Jennifer Connelly is offered a film, they always flop, and has no good-looking men (Carrer Opportunities, Heart of Justice, Some Girls, Seven Minuutes in Heaven, The Rocketeer.) So, it was no surprise when she was cast as Irene Beltran, in this semi-depressing film. The real shocker was the poster:could she be showing any more of her self? how disgusting!!! Other shocker: Antonio Banderas, come on, if you're going to have a good movie, you so need to have good actors that can act. Antonio Banderas, can not act, if his life depended on it. That said, let me explain the film. Irene Beltran, (Connelly), is a rich young women that is engaged to her cousin. Meanwhile, her photographer, Francisco Leal, (Banderas), is slowly falling in love with her. And who could blame him. The two uncover a secret, in a mine, soilders have stuffed hundreds of thousands of bodies. This could have been Inventing the Abbotts, (rich girl, poor boy, falling in love with rich girl.) Then, as any perosn who has seen a Jennifer Connelly film would know, the two engage in intercourse. It was the where that was disturbing:in the mine. So, like any love story, people, want the two killed before the story is expsoed to the world. I was quite unsure of what to think about this film, so you be the judge.

Having read the novel, I was curious to see how it would be made into a film. I had high hopes, because the book was extremely poignant and well-written. However, these hopes were dashed within the first five minutes of this truly awful movie.

Now, I'm a fan of both Antonio Banderas and Jennifer Connelly. I think they're great actors. However, Of Love and Shadows brought out the worst in both. The acting was hideous and essentially consisted of Jennifer Connelly using an awful accent while making bedroom eyes at Antionio Banderas, who did the same (but with a much better accent).

Aside from the terrible performances, the real flaw of this film was that it tried to incorporate too much of the book into too small a time frame. There is a good deal of fantastic material in the book, but there is simply too much to be done on screen. What seems to have happened is that the makes didn't exactly realize this and consequently tried to hold on to too many secondary characters and too many story lines. The result was less than satisfactory. I was entirely convinced that anyone who hadn't read the book before seeing the movie would have been completely lost.

In short, I seriously pity Isabel Allende for this horribly botched movie which is entirely unrepresentative of the excellent book she wrote. Do not watch this movie. Read the book.

This movie is not only bad but also downright annoying. Acting is weak and the characters are not convincing. You don't need to have lived in a Latin American country under dictatorship to notice the caricatural overplaying of roles. And it's not because the story is so obviously biased towards the leftist cause in Latin America (totally expected, being based on a book by Isabel Allende): Costa-Gavras was able to make good movies in spite of ideology. The funniest thing however is that the movie in reality, and unintentionally, ends up showing a face of Latin-American politics that is extremely depressing: the left and the right are both so empty-headed that not only you're incapable of feeling any sympathy for them, but even worse, it makes you believe that now you finally understood why Latin-American countries have so much trouble governing themselves. It's a really sad movie.

If you don't go by the poster of the movie(which portrayed it to be a passionate love story), you'd enjoy the movie.

I haven't read the novel and I was engrossed very quickly with what was shown in the movie. The year is 1973 and Chile has been taken over by military coup. An woman talks to Francesco(a phychiatrist) about the nightmares she is having after military has tortured her and her husband. Her voice breaks as she says "one after another..again and again" Irene (Connelly) belongs to the upper class, she is innocent, engaged to her cousin, a military captain since childhood. She also publishes a magazine. She employed Francesco(Banderas) who is now out of job as the photographer. Francesco and his family are totally against the human rights violation that occurs. His brother is a priest in church who tries to prevent things.

When the magazine crew went to interview Evangelina, a magical woman, military comes and interferes. Evangelina with superhuman strength picks up military commander Ramirez and throws him away. They left. Shortly after, Evangelina is taken by military and she has disappeared.

Irene and Francesco tried to find out where Evangelina is. In the process, their lives and others take a complete turn-oil. And expectedly they fall in love.

The scenes of military regime is very well depicted. The arrogance of their police, the fear among civilians are very real and touching. Of memorable scenes are Evangelina's friend in military who is torn between his job needs and the human ways.