Well done, but nothing new.
Added 1/27/2010
Maria Full of Grace (Joshua Marston, 2004)
I find it odd that this is the third "foreign" film I've reviewed in the past month with an American director, but encouraging as well; Americans are often disparaged for having, shall we say, our own unique take on world events (that usually boils down to "America, [censored for Amazon consumption] yeah!"). And none of the three (Chris Smith's The Pool, Cary Fukunaga's Sin Nombre, and Joshua Marston's Maria Full of Grace) seem to take that provincial "oh, my, look at the interesting natives" approach that's been endemic in American film since Nanook of the North. Obviously, being American myself, and not well-traveled, my main experience of Goa, Mexico, and Colombia, respectively, comes from the media put out by those countries (the novels, the movies, etc.), but going on those, it does seem to me that these filmmakers are trying to look at their subjects from as much a native perspective as they can. That said, it seems that Maria Full of Grace is the least successful of these, in that regard; it focuses on one narrow piece of Colombian life before transferring its action to New York City. On the other hand, looked at just as a film, it is the most successful of the three for precisely that reason; Marston has a story and he's interested in telling it without the details getting in the way.
Maria (Che's Catalina Sandino Moreno in her screen debut) is a Colombian teenager whose meager pay stripping the thorns from roses goes towards keeping her entire family fed and clothed. After an altercation with her boss, she quits the job in a fit of pique (and rightfully so), but that leaves her family with no income. Given the choice, she opts for making a lot of money very easily: she becomes a drug mule, as does her best friend Blanca (Yenny Paola Vega in her only screen appearance to date). The first half of the film covers this, along with the two of them befriending another mule, Lucy (Guilied Lopez, another with no other credits), getting loaded up with the drugs, and then heading to New York. The second half of the film is Maria in New York, where things go wrong, as things like this are wont to do, and she finds herself adrift, with her only contacts in the city Lucy's sister, whom she's never met, and the inconstant Blanca.
The movie has been hailed many times over for its gritty realism, but no one focuses on the more intriguing idea that this is actually noir. Think about it. There are no good guys in this film (with the possible exception of Don Fernando, a helpful New Yorker, but he is more reporter than participant in the film's events), only bad guys and badder guys. The protagonist is somewhat hapless, has a more hapless sidekick, and finds herself in way over her head from the get-go. Every time Maria attempts to do what she thinks is the right thing, it goes horribly wrong, sometimes more horribly than others. Is that not the essence of noir? Even the ending, which is far more ambivalent than one would expect (noir rarely, if ever, leaves room for hope), is not the kind that normally caps off a straight drama.
On the downside, however, is my wife's first comment after she'd thought it over for a while. "Have we seen that before? I don't remember seeing it, but I knew certain scenes before I actually saw them." No, we hadn't seen it before, but it's an understandable reaction; there is very little new here. There is artistry in the production (I originally wrote "production in the artistry" and it seemed right until I reread it, which should tell you something), and a lot of very good acting from people who are not (or were not at the time) actors. But if you experience deja vu while viewing, don't be surprised. ***
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Una Obra De Arte / Fantastica!
Added 5/20/2009
Simplemente una pelicula inolvidable, la catedra de actuacion que dicta Catalina es un legado para generaciones por venir. El talento de esta chica, el director y todos los protagonistas crean un drama tan real como el que viven sus contrapartes en la vida real.
La version en DVD tiene los comentarios del Director... realmente es la UNICA vez que he visto una pelicula en su totalidad escuchando al director haciendo la narrativa, CADA escena, tiene una historia!!
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"If you don't do this well, we'll stop right now..."
Added 5/8/2009
Stopping isn't an option, really.
Maria has a problem: she finds it difficult to conform to stupid conventions. But she ends up making a terribly wrong choice in her desperation to get out of the rut she is in. She's given the feeling that it's about easy money. Once she has made that wrong choice, she finds herself in situations which she wasn't warned about.
Having gone through the reviews, I find come common complaints in the negative ones: that it's like a documentary, that critics are partial to foreign films, that there's no story.
The fact is that this is a simple and moving tale, and it's told well, without fireworks. Apart from Catalina Moreno's wonderful performance, I liked her interview in which she says, "It's not about the drugs, it's about the girl". Equally important, the core of the story can be very close to you, if you look around.
The one problem is that some of the characters are a bit cheesy, like the gangsters in New York. For me, that didn't really dent the gracefulness of the movie much.
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Outstanding
Added 4/8/2009
A PC movie that is actually good, for once. The phenomenon of drug 'mules' from places like Colombia probably doesn't get enough attention. I imagine this is still going on every day. This film shows the difficult lives of immigrants, as well as the cheapness of life in places where it's difficult to earn money. The focus is narrow here, but that's an asset to the filmmaking.
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Pleased with movie. It arrived quickly and was in excellent shape. Thanks amazon.
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