Tropico de Sangre

An excellent movie about Mirabal Sisters.I found it a little bit crude and violent, but necessary to express the violence of Latin American dictatorship in the 50s. The cinematography by Ricardo de Angelis expresses the beauty of the Dominican Republic countryside and at the same time the sadness of the people under Trujillo's power. Editor Nelson Rodriguez made a good job as usual. We are not used to see actress Michelle Rodriguez in this type of character and we were surprised by its very fine and poetic Spanish. Cesar Evora as Antonio de La Maza is impressive as the macho that finally killed Trujillo. What I preferred of this movie is how the story is told and how the dramatic process fits the real historic facts.

A film with ups and downs, that's Tropico de Sangre! Being said that, come on, it's a try. And it really has substance and good things to be pointed out! Tropico de Sangre exposes in an authentic way the often repeated story of the Mirabal Sisters.

To start off with the good, the movie's technical aspects are admirable. The image is great, the effects are great, and the production managed to successfully achieve the environment of the 50's with a hit in both dressing and scenery.

The performance of several actors such as Sharlene Taule and Sergio Carlo (btw, is that his name?) performing Manolo were standouts, as well as the performance of experienced Cesar Evora. Michelle Rodriguez, despite the negative aspects, delivered the expected. Other minor actors like the one performing Minerva's father and the one performing Johnny Abbes resulted convincing as well.

The way they tell the story is completely different to what we have seen, almost like much more poetical to me, and with right touches of fiction.

Going to the cons, the story seemed to run slower than how it should have run. Sometimes you felt lost regarding some characters: who is he? why is he there?

Juan Fernandez performance, is truly disappointing often falling in ridiculousness. His voice trying to imitate Trujillo sounded like a comic brought to the screen, and his inflexions were way too robotic. Minerva's mom is a complete joke as well! Very bad make up and very depressing performance! Actresses like Claudette Lali, Luchy Estevez, Celines Toribio... are just soap opera-ish! Too melodramatic and no real essence. Very superficial!

Anyways, this move is dignifying Dominican depressing cinema!

I first came upon the stories about Trujillo in The Galíndez File. There he conspired with an equally evil man, Francisco Franco, to eliminate the competition. In face they showed part of that story in this film.

All fascist dictators are basically the same. They rule by fear and eliminate any opposition. They take what they want, and, in this case, Trujillo wanted Minerva Mirabal (Michelle Rodriguez).

She wanted nothing to do with him, else we wouldn't have a story. Naturally, her life, and the life of her family, were at risk due to her obstinacy.

The pacing of the film was rather slow, and the performances were wooden. I came to see Michelle Rodriguez, and turned in a credible performance.

I was very disappointed with this movie it has no quality at all in any aspect. Even actors such as Juan Fernandez and Michelle Rodriguez, did a bad job. I now realize that directing a movie has a great deal of what the final product is, and can make look bad good actors.

The history does not focus or follows a plot. It just splashes over some events without real depth into any of the characters. So you do not identify of fell any emotions. Not worth seeing it.

In some parts of the movies I really had to laugh of how bad they did it.

I would not recommend this film at all. I rate it -F

This is the second Dominican film I've seen. The other one was Sanky Panky. I think in three years or so Dominican cinema has somewhat improved: I liked the photography and the music. Nothing to say about them, they were quite good.

Unfortunately, there was a huge amount of things I did not like: - Acting was very very bad. Trujillo looked more like a clown than a dictator. Soap Opera style acting indeed.

• Screenplay: Full of holes, unarticulated, slow as hell, too much into details of the initial situation, not enough of the really critical ones. The best friend of a good screenplay writer is the delete key. Delancer's computer may not have one.

• Details, details, details: Parties that does not feel like ones, body-building Minerva, lots of clichés that the Dominican directors tends to include in films just as promotion of the country: baile de palos, serenatas...

My general feeling was that the film did not present the real things but kind of a caricature of them.