SANTITOS A film review by Steve Rhodes Copyright 2000 Steve Rhodes RATING (0 TO ****): **
In Alejandro Springall's SANTITOS, Esperanza's 12-year-old daughter, Blanca (Maya Zapata), has died. Or has she? The doctor, who refuses to show the mother the body, claims that Blanca passed away because of a freak virus, which she got while having her tonsils removed.
Esperanza, played with a resourceful but gentle spirit by Dolores Heredia, would probably have accepted the doctor's explanation if her oven hadn't been dirty. St. Jude, who, improbably, only appears in her oven when it's in need of cleaning, tells Esperanza from inside the oven that her daughter is alive somewhere. He sends Esperanza off to locate her.
When the doctor disappears, Esperanza and her local priest decide that the doctor must have sold the girl to a brothel somewhere in Mexico, where the story is set. Acting like an undercover detective, Esperanza takes jobs in various brothels in an attempt to come across her daughter.
The whimsical picture shows us colorful whorehouses decorated with kitsch. The prostitutes, who never seem to take off their underwear, wrestle with the clients in something approaching swing dancing. The quirky owners include an unusual gay couple -- the older one is a transvestite who keeps a secret heifer, and the younger one is a flamboyantly dressed fellow who carries a large white rabbit straight out of "Alice in Wonderland."
The imaginative happenings cannot make up for the lack of a compelling story. And when the writer, María Amparo Escandón, runs out of gas in the last act, she tacks on a love affair with a masked wrestler named the Angel of Justice (Alberto Estrella). His schtick is that he comes flying into the ring on a pulley. Although he takes off his large angel wings to wrestle, he never removes his mask so that not even his own mother knows what he does for a living.
The eclectic show ends without a satisfactory resolution. The actors are pleasant enough, but the imminently forgettable tale doesn't have much to recommend it.
SANTITOS runs 1:35. The film is in Spanish with English subtitles. It is rated R for sexual content and language and would be acceptable for most teenagers.
Email: Steve.Rhodes@InternetReviews.com Web: http://www.InternetReviews.com
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews