Francisca (2002) User Reviews (5)

interesting and well made but missing focus

[duncanstephens · 7/10 · 5 May 2003]

I've just seen this film at the spanish film festival in Sydney. The producer will be appearing at the film's next screening on Saturday 04/05 - for any Sydneysiders reading this who are tempted to go and see it.

'Francisca' as a film is hard to classify - it is not a documentary, despite its linear structure, and use of archive footage; not a thriller, although the setting, especially in the first half of the film had the potential for a top-rate thriller; and not a romance at all, as the core relationship of the film is poorly developed and difficult to relate to. I guess historical drama is the closest description, yet there is not enough history nor drama to really qualify on that front.

As a political statement the film is quite convincing in its portrayal of the helplessness of those on the 'wrong' side in a state where police power is unchecked - in this case left-wing university based protesters in Mexico in the early seventies. However, after getting the audience involved in the plight of the protesters, the film abandons them for the story of the main character (Bruno/Helmut), and his love-interest Adela, whose character is sadly one-dimensional - the passionate and beautiful idealist who falls in love without any apparent reason. The powerless of Bruno/Helmut's character is effectively demonstrated, but then further plot developments seem to suggest that his character has a tendency to find himself in situations he can't control , which seems to undermine the link from the personal back to the political (ie beginning of the film), leaving us a little confused as to what the filmmaker's point is.

This is not to say the film is not worth seeing. It is well made, with an interesting historical and cultural context, an unusual story, and offers a chance to see some great Mexican countryside. Somehow it doesn't quite gel, but nevertheless I'm glad I saw it.

Not a film for the masses

[missmarmite · 5/10 · 29 June 2002]

This small film stayed for only one week in one cinema in my city. And with me were only two other people attending the performance I had chosen. Well, I guess that's life. For me it's quite difficult to find the right words for what I've seen. The film takes place in Mexico in the early 1970s, a time when I wasn't even born yet. I can't remember whether I had ever learned anything about Mexican history or not. So I didn't know what was awaiting me. I have to admit the only reason for me was to see Ulrich Noethen, one of the finest actors we have today in Germany.

He plays a former Stasi informant (Stasi= secret police in the GDR) who wants to find a new life in Mexico in 1971. But the Mexican secret police knows him, catches him and oppresses him to work for them, otherwise they will send him back. He consents to do so, gets a new job at the university and falls in love with one of the political students he actually should spy upon. Suddenly the secret police is after him and the student and they have to disappear...

Ulrich Noethen delivers a fine performance - speaking Spanish, by the way- as do all the other main actors. Still I can't say that the film really impressed me. It was average, good average with good camera work, directing and score, but still average. Sometimes excellent films are able to awake an interest in me of the things I've just seen so that I read about them afterwards in books and magazines. This film unfortunately didn't get me interested in the Mexican history of that time. That's a pity.

My opinion is that this picture is only interesting for people who already love Mexico and its history or for admirers of one of the actors. But unfortunately for nobody else. I vote 5 out of ten.

Insipid

[ergalfi · 4/10 · 16 February 2005]

An ex- informant of the East Germany finishes in Mexico like spy of a student group in 1971 in where she falls in love with one of the activists. This is the first co-production of Mexico with Germany, and although it is a good picture of the ideals that marked, and continue marking (at least to the CGH), youth, as much finishes being something insipid since to the internal dilemmas that it faces Dark brown (Noethem) like the passion by his ideals that Adela feels (Campomanes), as soon as they glimpse, in the case of him, I want to suppose, by the barrier of the language; and in the case of her by its lack of experience. Reason why in the end a concrete identification with any of them does not exist, which causes that what could have been films that even served as document like Red Dawn, finished being one more a film; although I want to clarify that in the room many of the assistants were excited in the conversation with the director, which says to me that no longer they are so young or my ideals have changed.

Great, moving movie; Great scenario/writing.

[ewkent · 10/10 · 7 September 2003]

This film is never to be confused with the average commercial film (which may be why US commercial distribution rights have not yet been acquired yet, alas).

It has an extremely-well-thought scenario and script dealing with the "big issues" (old sense of "issues") of truth, humanity, and their limitations...and about how a man or woman's past (or what they BELIEVE was the truth ABOUT their past) can cast a shadow of the entire rest of their lives.

As has been pointed out by another commenter, this is not non-fiction, but the actors, script, and director are so good that a viewer may well feel that the story is "real" by the time the film ends.

I found the film quite moving, and the music cool (but what do I know about cool? I am 41 years old and don't listen to hip-hop;)

Go see it, people interested in History, Mexico, Philosophy...or maybe in what makes human beings tick.

world revolution

[RanchoTuVu · 8/10 · 16 May 2004]

A defecting East German secret police agent goes to Mexico and is immediately met at the airport by Mexican secret police who recruit him to spy on leftist university students or face deportation. An intriguing mixture of politics and romance creates a fairly interesting picture that gets preachy at times, but has a sledgehammer ending that more than makes up for it. In fact the premise is rather interesting as the protagonist is from a communist country and he's forced to spy on leftists by an authoritarian rightist government, and in the midst of it all he falls for one of the students. Escaping the repression of one government only to fall into that of another, he is like a puppet being jerked around from all sides, forced to spy on people whose views he presumably shares, walking a tightrope between the left and the right.