Mexican director Roberto Sneider wrote the script of "Tear This Heart Out" ("Arráncame la Vida") with the author and winner of the Mazatlán Prize for Literature for the best book of the year Ángeles Mastretta published in Mexico in 1985 partially inspired by the life of Maximino Ávila Camacho, a four-star general in Mexico's revolutionary forces, brother of Manuel Ávila Camacho who was President of Mexico from 1940 to 1946...
The film opens with the beautiful Catalina Guzmán (Ana Claudia Talancón) marrying at her early age a charismatic and cunning general named Andrés Ascencio (Daniel Giménez Cacho), much older than her
Dazzled by his world, Catalina escorts him on his political campaigns, perceiving at his side the intriguing political systems to obtain social justice...
Catalina, a smart but not an educated young woman, dedicates years of her youth to a 'loving' husband
She comes to Puebla to hear from the voice of her man, the governor of the beautiful city, that soon she will be the First Lady of Mexico as he considers himself the best-qualified candidate to win the race for the Presidency...
But one day, Catalina finds out that her arrogant and prepotent macho man is cheating on her with several women and has several children out of that relationship
But in spite of all that, and observing her husband's pervert and bad manners, Catalina continues to live with Andrés, to bear his two children, to train his others children in her family, to serve him as his adviser and to guide him to win elections, taking intense pleasure from that attitude
Nevertheless she learns that life and power are not always so pink
There is a scene during her pregnancy, where we saw her detecting that she is totally neglected
So, for the first time we watch her taking pleasure in having a love affair with a teenager who cherished her dearly
But the movie takes a dramatic turn when Catalina falls really in love with a concertmaster... And it was forbidden for her to fall in love! And she executes her cruel vengeance on Andrés sharing the musician' bed ignoring the predestined course of his future fate
And here Roberto Sneider's motion picture clearly comes off with three significant national old traditions: the 1930's post-revolutionary Mexico, the very crucial point for the Mexican girl, the "rite of passage," and the traditional macho man
The film is a love story through which three main characters are important for the viewer: Andrés, the charming officer, the great orator with the voice so thrilling and so impacting
His wife Catalina divulging how meaningless and insincere his promises are
And Carlos (Jose María de Tavira), the leader of the orchestra, the future of a new Mexico, the rebel, and what Mexico is expecting from her younger men
The motion picture presents the concept of the long-suffering Mexican woman vanishing here with Catalina as seen powerful of character, efficacious and extreme in having an affair with the man she deeply falls in love, intense in degree to accept whatever she is asked from her lover to carry out
Her representation of the submissive wife, in a macho world where women are suppressed and their voices not heard, has fallen with her determined and ambivalent character here, as near Carlos, Catalina is another woman who wishes, requests, and desires intensely the enjoyment of her personal liberty and personal efficacy
The result is a fine rich movie with many captivating visuals of the stunning state of Puebla, and definitely a must-see, at least for the Mexican viewers
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