Ok, so this movie is bizarre. The first half is a very sweet, with very interesting shots and good performance. But the second, and specially that ending, is something that can make you feel so miserable. It's tragic, it reminds me about the unluckiest tragedies of love.
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mtwisted20 July 2019
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evso18 November 2003We watched this film in Spanish class when I was in high school. I have seen quite a number of films since then, yet this one is ingrained in my memory because it FREAKED ME OUT. It is obviously by Garcia-Marquez, since it is such a twisted story.
Maria is a runaway bride. She was supposed to marry Hector a while ago, but left him at the altar. Months later, she shows up in a wedding dress after leaving yet another man at the altar and she and Hector start their romance back up again. Hector is a magician and she helps him with his act. Then one day, they split up in their two vans and he takes the tollway and she the freeway. Her van (with all the animals in it from the act) breaks down and she can't figure out what to do. A bus drives up and she asks if they can take her to a place that has a phone. She talks about all the animals in her van and how she needs to call Hector and tell him. The bus takes her to an institution where she walks around muttering, "I just needed to use the phone" and Hector thinks she has just left him again, since it's part of her nature.
I won't tell you how it ends, but let me just say that it is one of the reasons I'm glad to have a cell phone. It just goes to show you - you should always take the tollroad, otherwise you'll end up in an asylum.
Seriously, though - it is a BIZARRE film and is a bit on the campy side. If you like reading Gabriel Garcia-Marquez, then you might like this film. Otherwise, I can't recommend it. -
Dierdre9921 January 2003Spoilers.
As it says in the plot summary, Maria, a stage magician, married but a month, is on the way to a gig where Hector, her husband, is waiting. Her minibus breaks down, and in the rain and dark she hitches a ride in a passing bus. The bus drops her at a locked mental hospital, and the passenger list is destroyed in the rain. She never gets to make the phone call that she expected to do, and the staff assume that she is an inmate and won't let her out. Hector assumes that she has gone back to her previous boyfriend, and when she gets to a phone by breaking into the administration wing he refuses to talk to her. He doesn't report her or the minibus to the police as missing for over a month. Finally when the hospital staff track him down, he accepts their perspective that she is crazy, visits her only once and leaves her there!!! To call him a bastard or an idiot is quite insufficient: he is a failure as a human being.
This film is quite disturbing, a film of psychological horror.
By the way, the gringo version is 35 minutes shorter than the Mexican original. Is this just a tighter edit, or is something cut?