Lucía, Lucía

Spanish/Mexican co-production set in Mexico and surroundings with thrills , fun , intrigue , humor , bemusing incidents and nice players . It deals with a mature woman called Lucia (Cecilia Roth , Pedro Almodovar's usual actress) , she is a kid's book author and tells the tale of her husband's disappearance . Lucia is on an adventure that could change her life if she doesn't turn back . One day on their way to Brazil , at airport , her husband just disappears with no tracks . She goes to the District Precinct to denounce the deeds , gets a ransom note , and when is attacked by some hoodlums she befriends an old dude (the veteran Carlos Alvarez Novoa) downstairs and the young man (Kuno Becker) upstairs . Both of them help her and are caught up in trouble when attempt to solve the kidnapping and try to find him . In their vicissitude , the dropouts will be involving into mobsters , powerful drug baron , corrupt officers , among others . Things take a bit of a twist as she realized the abducting may not be as clear as it seems on the surface . In pursuing its objective the losers will face a group of gangsters , kidnappers and Police officers . Meanwhile , the motley team travels across Mexico .

This pursuit/road movie comedy contains intrigue , lots of emotion , drama , mystery , humor , entertainment , amusement and a colorful photography with juicy atmosphere . The extraordinary new wave of Mexican cinema continues with this slightly funny film , including entertaining events , suspense and an enticing love story ; being based on a novel written by Rosa Montero and screenplay by the same filmmaker Antonio Serrano . The film moves in fits and starts most of which would be desirable, with more traps the viewer resists any kind, and some moments of enjoyment and others quite a few embarrassing . The journey of the protagonists is so repetitive and the most part results to be rich in absurdities and implausibilities . The flick gives a short description about lives of people in Mexico D.F. , neighborhood , malls , markets , delinquency underground and many other things . This is a typical action/comedy from the 2000s with the usual ingredients such as thrills , suspense , enjoyable humor , social habits , relationships among people and an enjoyable love story between a Milf and a young boy . The main issue about the continuous meetings and ongoing squabbles between the protagonists and the pursuers is so repetitive and that makes it a bit boring though happen several adventures , mishaps , distresses and an unexpected final twist . The picture attempts to spread optimism about the events of life , friendship and love , with its amusing sides but also including some risks . The film explores the relationship among a motley trio well played by top-notch actors such as Cecilia Roth , Carlos Alvarez Novoa and Kuno Becker .

Atmospheric and appropriate musical score , including evocative Mexican sounds . Adequate as well as colorful cinematography by Xavier Pérez Grobet who subsequently worked in Hollywood such as : ¨Super Nacho¨, ¨Monster house¨, ¨Lyrics and music¨ , ¨I love you Philip Morris¨ and ¨Enough Said¨, among others . The motion picture well produced by great producer Andres Vicente Gomez was professionally written and directed by Antonio Serrano . Antonio was born in Mexico City and is a talented and versatile writer/director who has made a vast array of often solid and entertaining films in all kind of genres such as ¨Morelos¨, ¨Hidalgo¨ , ¨Sexo, Pudor , Lagrimas¨ and this acceptable comedy/thriller ¨La Hija del Cannibal¨ or "The Cannibal's Daughter¨ or ¨Lucía, Lucía" - USA title .

I avoided seeing this movie for a long time, simply because I was tired of being let down by bad mexican cinema. After seeing the huge marketing campaign behind it and noticing that it had the same director/writer of Sexo, Pudor Y Lagrimas, I decided to give it a shot. Big mistake, this is a mess of a movie, the plot, the dialogue, the paper thin characters. Not one of the elements that made Sexo, Pudor Y lagrimas translated, the only thing that remained were the preachy monologues and overall pretentiousness.

If you expect the plot in this Mexican pseudo-thriller to make sense, or be suspenseful, you are bound to be disappointed. The crux of this movie are the relationships and mid-life recentering that go on in Lucia's (Cecilia Roth) life. Her husband disappears, and she rushes to find him. Along the way she is befriended by an old ex-rebel communist and a young man who falls in love with her despite her wishes otherwise. These two friends come to take precedence in her life as she realized she doesn't really like her husband, and wants to live her own life. When she eventually tracks down her husband, she wishes him well and they go their separate ways. I didn't dislike the film even despite its weakness. I was interested to see how Lucia discovered herself and grew closer to and pushed away those around her.

This movie is like a veggie burger with eggplant in place of beef, covered in lettuce and tomatoes and sauce. When you first bite in, the first thing you taste is the bun and the lettuce. Then as you chew, you see that there is sauce, tomato and eggplant, but no meat. Try as you might, it's just not the same without meat. It might be not be disappointing if it were packaged a salad between bread, but as a substitute for a burger, it just doesn't satisfy. 5/10

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On 30 December, in the airport of Mexico City, the husband of Lucia (Cecilia Roth) vanishes a few minutes before the last call to the flight to Rio de Janerio, where they are going to see the reveillon in Copacabana. Lucia goes to the police to report the disappearance, and back home, she is mainly supported by two neighbors, the seventy years old Félix (Carlos Álvarez-Novoa) and the young man Adrián (Kuno Becker). Together, they look for Lucia's husband, in a journey of friendship, love and self-discovery for Lucia. Alternating the reality and the imagination of the character of Lucia, who is the narrator of the story, "La Hija del Cannibal" is a delightful, intriguing and original tale. The mysterious story is very unpredictable, and includes a tough critics to the corruption of the Mexican government. Cecilia Roth is excellent and very charming, as usual, very well-supported by Carlos Álvarez-Novoa and Kuno Becker. I liked this movie a lot and highly recommended as a very fresh screenplay. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Aos Olhos de Uma Mulher" ("Through the Eyes of a Woman")

Writers are driving me crazy: In `Adaptation' Nicolas Cage was barely sane struggling with his inspiration and incendiary companions, true or otherwise; in `Swimming Pool,' Charlotte Rampling created a plausible fiction of a dangerous female border and Rampling's desire to make real the murders she wrote.

Antonio Serrano's `Lucia, Lucia' is set in Mexico with a children's writer, Lucia (Cecilia Roth from Almodovar's `All about My Mother'), admitting in voiceover her fictions about her life, establishing herself as an unreliable narrator about the kidnapping of her husband, her attempts to recover him, an affair with a younger man, and a friendship with an older man. Initially I was put off by her lies because a mystery needs a reliable narrator, but as I accepted her creative effort to describe the middle-aged crisis through these fictions, I settled into an aesthetic trance that sees clearly the symbolism of each character relating to her changes of life. Her observation that heaven must be a moment of sex frozen in time is one of the interesting insights these varied experiences brought to her.

Involved in the kidnapping is a rebel gang patterned after the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) prominent about 30 years ago in Mexico. This plot to deliver the ransom money to the gang is so complicated that even the playful plots of `Y Tu mama Tambien' and `Amores Perros' seem simple by contrast. The inclusion of a corrupt government in the kidnapping is confusing and certainly adds no allegorical insight given the historically corrupt governments of Mexico.

The Spanish version of this film is called `The Cannibal's Daughter,' a much more daring and figuratively descriptive title for Lucia's consuming life. Actually, her actor father once played a cannibal and mother sees marriage as sharing life with the living dead. It's easy to see why Lucia questions her marriage and warily enters into relationships with the passionate young man and politically-romantic older man. At the least in her story, she is experiencing what the bard predicted when he said of middle age:

`Thou hast nor youth, nor age, But as it were an after-dinner's sleep Dreaming on both.'

In the end, the story turns nicely on the evolution of a soul who accepts life and her place in it as a writer whose imagination helps her find peace. The men may lose her, but she finds herself.