O Ditador

As hard as it is to top any book with a movie, this one may be Especially harder, Mario Vargas Llosa is an outstanding writer and I Believe Lucho Llosa did a splendid job with this film. Isabella Rossellini was incomparable as usual, as well as many new faces, such as Stephanie Leonidas, who played the part of young Urania Cabral with so much passion it steals your heart. There are some twists in the story that will blow your mind away; although I must insist on reading the book first, even without the book the story is captivating. Aside from the acting and the very interesting plot, I believe everyone (especially us Latin Americans) should pay special attention to the story and be very aware of history repeating itself.

As a Dominican, I can say the movie cannot be considered as the movie about the Trujillo government, but about the story of how some things were in those years, specially how difficult was for some women specially that were attracted by Trujillo, and how Urania's life changed after going to help his father reputation while going to the supposed "party" with Trujillo, that became into the Goat's party as the movie is named. I haven't read the book yet, but I like the movie and I recommend it movie. For people interested in knowing about Trujillo's era, also you can see "In the times of the butterflies", it is also more realistic about Trujillo's times.

I am a Dominican, and it's always good to see movies that are about facts from my country. I was waiting for this movie, everybody knows the book it's already a classic, Trujillo's era it's one of the bloodiest of all the dictators-ships that Latin America has suffer. Well, this movie is based on the book of the same name, but it's very difficult to top the book's magic in a two hours film. It's not a bad movie, but it's not what should have been. Nice cinematography in some scenes but the director fails in portray to us the strongest side of the characters. I give the movie a 6 out of 10, cause anyways, it's a good approach to the book, and the people that doesn't know about this story, i recommend this movie as the best out there about Trujillo and his "nasty" regime.

"La Fiesta del Chivo" is a startling look at the long-running dictatorship of Leonidas Trujillo (1930-1961)in Republica Dominicana, seen through the eyes of one of his youngest victims. The delightful Isabella Rosselini plays Uranita, the long lost child that wanders back home thirty years after fleeing. In a series of flashbacks we see the country where she spent her early days, the dangers and horrors of a tyranny she couldn't possibly understand and the haunting reasons why she fled. Tomas Milian convincingly plays the lewd dictator with all his whims, coarseness and vanity. Paul Freeman is at his best playing Uranita's widowed father, Agustín Cabral, lifelong aide to the strongman and a staunch prop of the regime. A street scene depicts a lighted "ad" placed outdoors which reads "Dios y Trujillo", ominously summing up all the terror of a Third World tyranny.

I think The Feast of The Goat is a very good film, of course always taking into account that it is an adaptation of the novel by Mario Vargas Llosa, it is not a documentary, which means that not all the facts presented in the movie are real, some come from the imagination of the author. It you want to know what is real and what is not, then investigate about the Dominican history. This movie is a sad and interesting story of a woman that went through the same that many other women did in that time where the Dominican Republic belonged to Rafael Trujillo the Dictator for 30 years, they also show the atmosphere of fear and lack of respect for the human rights. The movie is located in the last years of the period so we can see the conspiracy to kill him, and the facts that leaded those people to do it. The performances of Tomas Milian as Trujillo and Stephanie Leonidas as young Urania were very convincing. The costumes were good but some of the ones Tomas Millian wears are big for him and it is very obvious. Isabella Rosellini is OK nothing to be remembered, she just does the job.