LIKE WATER FOR CHOCOLATE
A film review by James Berardinelli
Copyright 1993 James Berardinelli
Date Released: varies Running Length: 1:45 Rated: R (Nudity, sexual situations, violence)
Starring: Lumi Cavazos, Marco Leonardi, Regina Torne,
Mario Ivan Martinez, Yareli Arizmendi
Director: Alfonso Arau
Producer: Alfonso Arau
Screenplay: Laura Esquivel
Music: Leo Brower
Released by Miramax
Spanish with English Subtitles
In the early years of the Twentieth Century, on a small ranch in Mexico, the story of three sisters and their repressive mother unfolds. Tita (Lumi Cavazos) is the third and youngest daughter of Mama Elena (Regina Torne) and as such, because of a family tradition, she is forbidden to marry or have children until after her mother's death. Tita is agreeable to this situation until she falls in love with the dashing young Pedro (Marco Leonardi). When Pedro learns that he cannot marry Tita, he agrees to an engagement with her older sister Rosaura (Yareli Arizmendi) in the hope that by marrying her, he will be given ample opportunity to spend time with his real love.
An admittedly unusual title for a film, LIKE WATER FOR CHOCOLATE fits the mood of the movie--odd, playful, and sweet. It equates the boiling point of water for hot chocolate with the height of passion in male/female relationships. With occasional surrealistic fantasy sequences interspersed between the commonplace goings-on of regular lives, the film has a way of enchanting the viewer--until a disappointing end.
Although it deals with some potentially-weighty subjects--death being a prevalent theme--LIKE WATER FOR CHOCOLATE is surprisingly light-hearted. It manages to find the funny side of almost any subject or event. That isn't to say that darker emotions are not expressed, because they certainly are, but they are kept from dominating.
There's a lot of passion expressed in LIKE WATER FOR CHOCOLATE. Love and the rebellion of youth are two of many subjects tackled by the film. The tragedies and ecstasies of both are confronted. We are given an opportunity to see how the attitudes of the characters change over time and how true love, once revealed, can never be held back.
The greatest weakness of this movie is its ending--and not only the final scene, but the ten-minute "epilogue." The last part of LIKE WATER FOR CHOCOLATE takes place twenty years beyond the rest of the film. The transition in time is jarring--I was momentarily disoriented, and the ultimate thrust of these final events seems a trifle silly. While they don't destroy the movie, they reduce its overall impact. Many will find a natural sense of closure in the way that Arau has chosen to conclude his film, but it's a little too hard for me to swallow.
A recurring metaphor in LIKE WATER FOR CHOCOLATE is food (the title is a good tip-off of that). Hardly a scene goes by without someone eating or preparing a meal and some of the film's more hilarious sequences surround a pair of banquets. Each of these scenes has a meaning beyond the obvious, however. Food is equated with life and vivacity, two subjects into which this movie delves.
One of the best films to come out of Mexico in years, LIKE WATER FOR CHOCOLATE is in every sense an "art film." Possessing an almost-ethereal quality, it is not every man's "cup of tea." However, those with a penchant for these sorts of films--offbeat, quirky, and subtly emotive--will almost certainly accept LIKE WATER FOR CHOCOLATE as something of a rare treat. Too bad the ending couldn't have been a little better grounded.
Rating: 8.3 (B+, ***)
- James Berardinelli (blake7@cc.bellcore.com)
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