Erendira

Although this lovely work of art does use some of the cinematic vocabulary of surrealism, it is in fact nothing of the sort. It is a political and cultural allegory of Mexico's post-Columbian odyssey, as even a passing glance at Mexico's history will attest.

In contrast to "Like Water for Chocolate," "Erendira" expects the viewer to meet it at least half way so that understanding it takes a little work. (A good starting point is to see the grandmother character as Spain: proud, aloof, sorrowful and, above all else, weighed-down-with-history.)

The ultimate actions of the heroine are obscure because the "outcome" of history (i.e. the present) is always obscure, since we are too close to it for honest evaluation. Refusal to neatly tie up loose ends is the only real choice available to the director, given the ambitions of the film.

"Erendira" is gorgeous. A big-screen experience would be ideal, if you can catch it at a local art house or university screening. But if not, VHS is better than never seeing it at all.

This is a gorgeous movie visually. The images of the Mexican desert, the old mansion, the characters in their picturesque costumes...all amount to a real work of art.

The story seems a bit loose, but that's because it's not meant to be realistic. It is taken from a book called One Hundred Years of Solitude, and it is supposed to be an evocation of the isolated, otherworldly atmosphere of Latin America "so far from God, and so close to the United States". The tremendous debt that Erendira owes to her grandmother is symbolic of Latin America's international debt burden, although there many layers of meaning.

If you can appreciate a slow-moving, richly-textured movie, this one is for you.

Unfortunately, this movie never made it to DVD. I saw it when it was first released to the theaters in 1983, and then again when the VHS was released in 1992. When I recently saw a VHS copy at a flea market, I immediately bought it. I was not disappointed. First, the obvious: Claudia Ohana is beautiful and a joy to behold. But then, the film takes you into an unreal world where you have to reflect on your values and decide what is really important to you. The movie is about a lot of things. It is about how the World Bank and large corporations exploit and enslave developing countries with their capitalist schemes to force them into a debt that they can never repay. It is about how our economic system exploits us by forcing us into debt with credit cards, mortgage, and car payment. It is about trying to save an innocence that maybe we have never really had and maybe we cannot really save. It is about good and evil and about how hard it is sometimes to tell one from the other. It raises a lot of questions but does not give answers. I think sometimes this is good. For this reason, this is a film really worth saving and seeing.

I first rented this film many years ago, and was completely enthralled by it. Just recently, feeling a strange need to revisit some of the way-too-few films that I've immensely enjoyed in my lifetime, I decided to give "Erendira" another look. And I'm glad I did, as I soon discovered that even the passage of time has not in the least dulled the shine of this film.

The story is about a teenaged girl (Erendira, played remarkably by Claudia O'hana - in some respects she resembles Winona Ryder!) who accidentally burns down her grandmother's mansion after which the grandmother, played downright hypnotically by Irene Papas, forces the girl into a life of prostitution on the road to repay the damages.

The viewing is at once fascinating and compelling - though, inspite of the basic premise, which deals with prostitution, is tastefully void of gratuitous steamy sexual content. The story revolves more around the interactions between the girl and her grandmother, and the various other colorful characters with whom they come into contact on their sojourn - which, by the way, is in the rough and tumble part of rural Mexico.

The film is very atmospheric, arrestingly enigmatic with a decided dreamlike quality. It sometimes borders on the bizarre, but not to the point of, say, a David Lynch film. It's also worth mentioning that the film is very allegorical in nature, read the comments from previous viewers below...

Often in the background you hear the sounds of a lone accordion, quiet and melancholy, adding just the right musical accents to highlight the Mexican setting. The cinematography of the rural places, many of which are in the desert, is quite superb.

The film moves at a nice pace, neither too fast nor too slow, and after every scene I felt I had to rewind the tape and play it over again, just because it makes you want to do that. For me anyway, it really is that compelling.

Hopefully you will see the film in its Spanish language version, with subtitles. I studied Spanish in high school as well as in college, and I was happy to be able to understand much of the dialogue. Por ejemplo: "El mundo no es tan grande como pensaba." ("The world's not as big as I thought" - i.e., It's a small world.)

This film somehow reminds me of stumbling upon a dusty old bottle of vintage wine, which, upon drinking, is immensely satisfying, however, you are left with some sadness upon realizing that there aren't more bottles just like this one.

Young Erendira and her tyrranical Grandmother provide for a great fantasy from the new world. This interpretation of Gabriel Garcia Marquez'"La incréible y triste historia da la cándida Eréndira,..." may not rub Marquez purists the right way eventhough The story stays intact and still carries the full force of the work. The strength of this film is in its acting especially Papas as the Grandmother. Marquez fans and Marquez novices alike will enjoy this movie for its real gritty brand of witt.