Vidas privadas

One word, WOW! This movie has been bumped up to my #1 favorite movie. I watch many international and spanish films. I enjoy them more than American films because they are so unpredictable and unexplainable like the movie "Pierdas Verdes." After all Spanish movies I am left breathless and wondersome. Nothing has ever been this extraordinary. This movie is very powerful and goes where no other movies dares to go. I was in awwh throughout this whole film. Scene after scene you are simply amazed. Vidas Privadas has an excellent storyline, the actors, like Cecilia Roth (All About My Mother), and Gael Garcia Bernal (Amores Perros), are brillant. You can't go wrong with this movie by Fito Paez a legendary Argentine musician.

Okay, this might not be the best of all Latin American movies, and it certainly doesn't have the most plausible of all plots (much has been said about it already). But, let's be honest about this: I appreciate every opportunity to see the acting of Cecilia Roth and Gael Garcia Bernal, and here they are both brilliant. Gael, especially, as the boy-man who falls in love with the mysterious woman behind the wall, delivers a heartbreakingly vulnerable performance. To see him break down in the end when Carmen's secret is revealed, made me suffer with him. Cecilia, too, is pure gold, and her scenes together with Gael crackle with erotic tension. Carmen, who is unable to lead normal sexual relationships after the trauma of imprisonment and torture under the Argentinian dictatorship, needs other people to audibly perform sexual acts to get some satisfaction herself. She likes to listen to hired couples from an adjacent room but usually remains invisible herself. The first thing that strikes her about young Gustavo is his voice on an answer machine. Since the owner of said answer machine is a friend who runs a model agency and provides her with "performers", she chooses Gustavo to be her next visitor. First she listens to him having sex with a girl, then she wants him to come alone and read dirty novels to her. Their mutual interest grows and, eventually, the middleaged woman and the 22 year old man fall in love with each other. However, their happiness is doomed. Something they don't know about each other (or does Carmen know?) is bound to surface, and a tragedy of Greek dimensions unfolds when it does. I'm quite certain that, in the future, only hard core Gael and Cecilia fans will bother to check out this dimly lit curiosity. Count myself one of them. The DVD (Spanish with English subtitles) is not one to stumble across in your usual video store. All the more, I'm glad to own it now, and I'll certainly watch it again. To see (and hear!) Gael Garcia Bernal lie on a bed, reading erotic fiction to his invisible client, was worth the money alone

I watched many foreign movies , but this one has some very bad subtitles. so thats the main cause , another.. its kinda boring..

this movie is under category of "cheating wife" incest" category .. but...i understand that this happens in movie ..or not.

not worth to watch.

I bought the film and couldn't wait to rip open the package and watch it. I love Bernal's acting (he comes by it naturally from his family). But the plot and dialog reminded me of some of the French films of the same genre from the '60s. I kept expecting Deneuve or Tritignant to come through the door. I couldn't watch it through to the end. I admit that I was tired and had just watched, Dot the I (much superior), so maybe I'll give another go, even if only to watch Bernal who never disappoints. This was a forced film in my opinion with a dreadful script, but maybe I should give a second chance. That sounds perhaps a bit pretentious:-) Hugh Corston Quebec City

I see this film on DVD in 2005. Available in the US finally. I do not that agree with the previous reviewer. Although the film is kind of forced and unconvincing, especially towards the ending, the film is ambitious and thought-provoking. It seems to attempt to provoke sentimentalism, which I do not care for. It seems to provide some sexual sensation, which I find rather uncomfortable (maybe this uneasiness is meant) What I appreciate is that the film intricately incorporates critical and politicized views. This film reminds me of Polandsky's MAID AND DEATH, which is also situated in Latin America. Both female and male leads are great. If the plot of the film is forced, their acting is not. It the plot has to try hard to be touching, their acting can touch people more elegantly. It is a pity that their acting might be thought "funny" to some viewers though....