EL BULTO
A film review by Ben Hoffman
Copyright 1995 Ben Hoffman
What happens to a man when he awakens after having been comatose (a sort of Rip Van Winkle) for 20 years? What changes have taken place that he is expected to comprehend? Future Shock for him is already here.
Lauro Cantillo (Gabriel Retes), a communist who is a photo-journalist in the 1970s, is beaten into a coma during an anti-government riot. For twenty years his family has refused to have "the plug" pulled on him. Daily his children, now grown up, have come to the hospital to exercise his limbs and massage him. Little by little as they become accustomed to the situation they find a little sour humor by referring to him as El Bulto, "The Lump."
During that period, his wife Alba (Delia Casanova) has remarried. The children of Lauro and Alba, while one day at the hospital notice eye movement by their father. Doctors are called in and little by little Lauro begins to improve to the point where he can live at home with the aid of a wheelchair and eventually a crutch.
But that of course is the physical part. He must get used to changes in the world, everything from a Walkman, his son's shaven head, the new morality. Most traumatic for him is when he learns from an old comrade who is a newspaper editor, that "there are no more communists. There is no USSR. All the things you and I fought for are now the domain of the materialistic. Idealism has fallen by the wayside." Even his once communist brother-in-law has turned into a wealthy man, owner of three cars and a beautiful house.
Day after day, Lauro learns he must adjust to this new world that has changed so much in a scant twenty years.
The Mexican film, directed by Gabriel Retes, has English subtitles.
3 Bytes
4 Bytes = Superb
3 Bytes = Too good to be missed.
2 Bytes = So so.
1 Byte = Save your money.
Ben Hoffman
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