Like Water for Chocolate (Lumi Cavazos, Regina Torné)
When most movies try to portray the deepest throes of passion and romance, they usually end up playing more like a sitcom. This happens when the filmmakers present a story about how they would like true love to be, instead of how love really is. Love isn't rational, it isn't easy to control, and often it isn't fair. It's hard to make a good film about love, because love doesn't really make any sense to start with.
The 1993 film Like Water for Chocolate may not be on par with classics such as Casablanca or Gone with the Wind -- the characters simply aren't well enough developed -- but it is a magical romp about life, death, and, of course, food. I've read the book, and it's uncanny how seamless an adaptation this is. The food appears every bit as scrumptious onscreen as it does when reading the twelve recipes in the novel.
The movie takes place in early twentieth century Mexico, where Tita (Lumi Cavazos), the youngest of the family, is prohibited from taking a husband. Mama Elena (the chilling Regina Torné), declares Tita must care for her until the day she dies. It's a variation of the Cinderella story but taken to the most extreme of situations when the man she loves, Pedro (Marco Leonardi), decides to marry her sister just to be near Tita. The rest of the film fashions a 24 year long foreplay between the two star-crossed lovers, until the opportunity to consummate their love is finally set ablaze.
Like Water for Chocolate has some great moments. See, Tita is one heck of a cook, and her meals have a way of affecting those who eat them. The wedding cake she so grudgingly and sadly makes for her sister Rosaura and Pedro causes all of the guests to cry uncontrollably (not to mention group vomiting). Repressed feelings for Pedro find their way into her recipe for quail, so everyone at the table suffers from hot flashes. Some are affected more than others; her sister Gertrudis bolts outside, rips her clothes off and runs off on horseback with an outlaw. A meal prepared for Rosaura is laced with anger, so naturally Rosaura begins to flatulate constantly. And so on. These scenes are whimsical and light, and they balance the more serious undertones of Laura Esquivel's source material.
There was only one real lull to the movie, and that is when Mario Iván Martínez, who plays the naive doctor, decides to take Tita to Texas after her traumatic breakdown. Their chemistry is obviously not of the "boiling point" kind, so the scene is merely a hiccup amongst all the good stuff.
I've watched a few Latin American movies this past week and I notice that the female characters are really insightful and interesting to watch. It reminds me that many of Hollywood's offerings assume the purpose of women in romantic movies is for them to be the one that the guy falls in love with, and that's about as much as is "fleshed" out. Like Water for Chocolate is a very tasty picture for movie lovers. It takes you outside the box of reality for a brief period of time as the thought of forbidden lust continues to simmer.
