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209.165.4.45
overrated film which I saw yesterday.
The actress is hardly a beauty but rather a quite commonly attractive Latina. Her emotional range is from 0 to 0.1. A woman she knows dies a grisly death and she reacts as if someone changed the channel on her favorite soap.
Zero drama in this trite little film, though a more talented writer and director could have made it a thriller.
She is pursued by vicious drug runners? Zero suspense.
HBO Films must have some clout to get so many rave reviews. This one should have remained a TV movie: it's pure melodrama.
It seems to have a curious right-wing agenda theme, as well...(having out-of-wedlock kids is fine). After all, marrying the father, staying on to help her family, and soldiering on as many do was an option. Is the one she chose any better? Just what does a non-English speaking woman with a little bastard baby have to look forward to in this country?
She traded rose work for sewing, hardly a big step up considering the dangers she'll face in her future slum digs.
Now I've convinced myself: this movie is worse than usual TV fare...
Follow Ups:
...it never tried to be a thriller. Nor did it try to show its main character as an outstandingly beautiful woman.And of course it doesnīt have any rightwing agenda...
And now please let me elaborate: what this film depicts is not just Mariaīs portrait, but a situation which is common to thousands of women in similar situations: thatīs why the main character is named "Maria", which is the most common name for girls in any Spanish-speaking country. The girl is actually not just herself, but to some measure the other three girls, too: Mariaīs best friend; then that Lucy who, by their standards, looks like having a good life; the older woman with a slutty look in the airplane, and Maria herself all sum up to make a single character, kind of a semiarchetypal portrait of those women overburdened by an oppressive misery which in that country may end up with them acting as mules to carry cocaine inside their bodies.
The film gives an accurate portrait of the conditions that usually lead women in empoverished countries to accept that dangerous illegal job, even knowing the high risks involved: misery at home, and the lack of opportunities to raise above it drive them into the hands of drug dealers and trafficants. And even these bastards are not depicted as barbaric evildoers, but as apparently affable guys, while actually ruthless in the way they "insure deliverance of goods"...
The way this girl Maria gets involved, and trapped into that net, is simple, and it goes on in a way that sure is not much different from what actually happens there everyday: thereīs no straight violence seen in the screen, but these girls, once trapped, are trapped forever, or until they are caught.
The baby in her plays a double role in this film, which, even not being esecially complex, isnīt as simple as it may look (and as you have stated...), as it is the trigger that makes Maria question her role and her future in the village she lives in, thus giving her a reason to risk her life, and when she is questioned and detained at the airport, this baby inside her body is the only reason why she is not thrown straight into jail. She doesnīt seem to have ever seriously considered the possibility of an abortion, but she doesnīt want to follow the same steps her sister has, and she fights for that baby the only way she finds: itīs about how good people can end up doing wrong things, while not losing their innocence and their soul in the process.
As you rightly say, "She traded rose work for sewing, hardly a big step up considering the dangers she'll face in her future slum digs", and by so doing she assumes a big risk. But the fact is, that at home she had absolutely no hope of getting any better, of not ending like her sister and her own mother... while in the US she still sees some possibility of progress by working hard as Lucyīs sister is doing.
The characters are deeply human: even that man, the fat deal-maker, is depicted as a concerned man, who in his own way helps her to conjure the life-threatening risk those two thugs are. And even those bastards do honor their deal and, once theyīve recovered the drugs, pay them.
No, I am not saying that bad people in this film are good ones. What I am saying is that this film is pregnant with nuances, and that the characters in it are much more complex, and much more human, than what you seem to think they are. And that it is a very good film, narrated with a good filmic pulse, never overacted, never resourcing to snuff or goreish images, with a good photography and accurate characters, even if a bit sketchy at times. In few words: exactly what Hollywood films use not to be...
I think it would be wise to see it once more, this time with new eyes, as your point of view, and your evaluation of it, could change a lot, for better.
Regards
BF
...you than me, kid.Nice analysis. But probably a waste of your valuable time. I found MFOG to be one of the better films of the year and a stratlingly good first film.
That's asking a lot of him, or any 'right wing conservative'. Seeing the world in just black and white with no shades inbetween, nuances you say? LOL, he may have to look that one up.
...with social concerns: a leftie, if you ask the Neocons here...But, in the same way even a blind pig finds some acorn now and then, even the best ones among us can occasionally fail at appreciating some valuable gems (you have failed at recognizing tinear... ;^)) ). Thatīs why I recommended him looking at it once more, with fresh eyes.
Regards
BF
.
I think you ment to say 'left wing'? And "bastard baby" ???...hey its 2004...the 19th century is calling you. Looks like that film did stir the demons within...so maybe it has some merit.
The movie shamelessly trumpets motherhood at all costs and stoops to show magnetic imaging of her cute little fetus.
Bastards' (try saying it any other way and you use a lot more letters) moms do not have it easy in macho cultures. Little Maria would most likely never find a "decent" suitor and be reduced to the pool of Latino druggers (unless you came by, obviously). :--))
LOL...I like Tamarind sauce...LOL.
.
You saw it but you didn't "see" it.You deserve to be tortured with the TV movie of the week on WE. ;-)
just "exist." She displayed no visible emotions, NONE. I don't believe she has the ability (ok, she did "do" petulance in several scenes with her original boyfriend).
TV movie of the week? What do you think Maria Full of Shit was???
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