Zapata - El sueño del héroe

This Film betrays the very cause that is supposed to honor.

When I saw Alfonso Arau's "Zapata" I expected a film that may not only expose the American natives as a great, noble and highly organized and intellectual cultures, specially the Aztec Empire, but also to bring the well deserved pride to this humiliated, discriminated people in Latin America.

Instead what I saw is a disrespectful MOCK of the accounts of the history, in short:

-Zapata (Fernandez) denies every time he is a leader, a liberator, he is actually annoyed when he is asked for guide from his devoted followers, seems that he got stuck in that position for pure luck.

-Zapata (Fernandez) doesn't in any point of the movie prove that indeed he is a leader or that he deserves that title.

-Zapata's brother dies in this film in the vilest situation, a betrayal, having sex with the wife of a fellow Indian. Any honorable Aztec man knew that this sole act in the Aztec law will get death as punishment.

-Zapata in this movie claims that his struggle is to defend their traditions, self-respect, history, beliefs and way of life but several times in the film he leaves his Indian wife to go after the beautiful blonde European mistress, betraying the very own cause he is fighting for, is this the leader his people deserve?

-A witch, (sometimes naked) keeps appearing in his dreams, I believe she is some kind of guide in Zapata's life, how come she never told him that he was going to be lied by the enemy and killed in the lamest way?

I can easily keep writing about how bad this film is, but I will need about four hours for that, basically the time it took to write the screenplay of "Zapata, El Sueno del Heroe", (Sad, very Sad)

LPortillo

I have seen this Spanish language film which focuses on the famed Mexican revolutionary, Emilano Zapata. My knowledge about it's hero and the revolution is extensive. Also, I recall Elia Kazan's biopic of Zapata, which starred Marlon Brando. It is not difficult to follow the story. 14 of the 16 comments (so far) are singularly disappointing, making me wonder if they saw the same movie. The 14 negatives are vile, cowardly attempts to assassinate Arau's movie and his talents. So cowardly, in fact, they don't dare sign their real names.

I found the film engrossing, beautifully photographed by Victorio Storaro and masterfully directed by Arau -- one of the few truly great filmmaker's of our time. He isn't interested to portray car crashes, sadism, murders and allied subject matter.

He is a very humane man -- who is able to invest that humanity in his films. They have great charm, a quality which has virtually disappeared from movies. (See his: "Like Water For Chocolate", "A Walk In The Clouds",etc.)

For me, Arau is the Vittorio De Sica of modern film-making and we are indeed fortunate he is still making films.

Robert Dorff

I have a little understanding of what happened to this movie, having been hired as the VFX supervisor, but not completing any of the visual effects. This was originally a Canadian / Mexican co-production, with a smaller percentage of investment supposed to come from Canada, and certain crew (editor, sound dept., visual effects) being supplied by Canadian companies. When I arrived on set there were already problems both with budget overrun and also, I understand, with funds being transferred from Canada. I completed supervising the 'raw plates' on location, but not a single frame ended up going to the original post production house that hired me. There was some beautiful footage shot by Vittorio Storraro, but already before I left some disagreement between Alfonso Arau and the Canadian editor, over the cutting style. The editor left soon after me. I later heard a rumour that the negative was held up at the lab in L.A. over unpaid invoices. I have never seen the 'finished' movie but I can speculate that there was a desperate scramble to put this film together in some way at least for a DVD release. The investors must have been screaming for a way to return some of their capital.

So please don't be quite so hard on this movie. It is basically unfinished. I cannot comment on acting, direction and other aspects that I have not seen, but some of the scenes which I saw uncut in Mexico had more promise than was realized. Jeery Andrews VFX Supervisor (shoot only!)

How do you turn a man into a myth? Or worse yet, how do you make 2 hours of pretty terrible viewing? The answer would be this sad attempt at the retelling of one of Mexico's greatest heros. For starters, Alejandro Fernandez doesn't look anything like Emiliano Zapata--he's way too white. And Fernandez looks more like a Mexicano Clive Owen, which was somewhat distracting. The scenes jump with no ryhme or reason as the movie tries to follow the trajectory of Zapata's life. Unless you are completely familiar with the Diaz dictatorship and the land struggles and revolution in Mexico in the early 20th century, you're gonna be completely lost. The film vacillates between grand epic and art film. Zapata/Fernandez is guided by three wise women whose presence in the movie is distracting and just downright goofy. The previous reviewer made mention of several present day Mexican stars who have cameos, including Lucero as Zapata's upper-crust lover(!). I did enjoy the scene where Zapata meets Villa, which re-enacts the famous photograph of the two revolutionary leaders. You do get a sense of the larger than life character that Villa was. However, that short scene is not enough to make up for all the tedious scenes that came before. Really, this movie stinks and doesn't do justice to the memory of a great man who helped led the peasant revolt in Mexico.

As a mexican, it pains me terribly to see dead and gone the prestige acquired by Arau with "Como agua para chocolate", but it pains me even more to see this awful and disrespectful portrayal of a national hero in the hands of Arau. Terrible actors, worse screenplay, unforgivable historical lies and a total waste of ten million dollars.

Lame high-school-level effects, and so many ridiculous supposedly mystic references (all mixed up and wrong) that make this movie an involuntary comedy, promising to turn a macarena-dancing nahuatl old witch character into a sad, sad stain in a previously good Arau's resumé.

I would have preferred Arau to publicize his movie as a satyre... That might have (and I repeat, MIGHT HAVE) saved his reputation, but it is unadmissible to let him play with the image of a national hero, and make a long, very bad videoclip for Alejandro Fernández out of this "movie", and make us mexicans be sorry for it to be seen overseas.