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Summary: See it!!!!!
Review: A must see fil
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Summary: I saw the cover and said NO WAY but man was i wrong!
Review: A must see! Salma Hayek is amazing! I love it!!!! Promise me you'll go see this movie and once you do you'll know what i mean!!!
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Summary: Wonderful, Magical, Masterfully told.
Review: Absolutely, one of the 10 finest films I've seen on the last 5 years. Its gigantic human touch is incredibly told from different points of view in the same time period.
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Summary: ALLEY OF MIRACLES
Review: After the experience of THE BEGINNING AND THE END, another novel of the egiptian writer Naguib Mahfouz translated to the mexican atmosphere, the world of this writer shows again the smilar and intense reality with Mexico.THE BEGINNING AND THE END was filmed in Mexico City by Arturo Ripstein.The casting of MIDAQ ALLEY is great specially Margarita Sanz as Susanita who won many awards around the world.Too bad that the all new mexican cinema is not available in the USA.Other films of interest if you liked this one:THE BEGINNING AND THE END, Arturo Ripstein, Mexico 1993ANGEL OF FIRE, Dana Rotberg, Mexico 1992THE WOMAN OF THE PORT, Arturo Ripstein, Mexico 1991THE PLACE WITHOUT LIMITS aka NO END, Arturo Ripstein, Mexico 1977
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Summary: A realistic "Callegon de Milagros"
Review: An excellent drama offset by comedic situations and some great acting."Midaq Alley" captures life around a neighborhood in Mexico City complete with intertwined lives and surprising tangles in the web of life. The story has a soap opera quality but is much more grand and much more realistic than the sappy soaps. The movie is a peek into the trials and tribulations of ordinary lives with at times extraordinary circumstances. It covers a variety of contemporary issues addressing life in the DF today. It is very difficult to explain other than to say that it is well worth viewing to draw your your own conclusions. There is alot going on in the story. The acting is superb and very gritty, giving the movie a sense of authenticity. There is a whole cast of characters that have their roles big and small but all lend credence to the movie. One of my favorite characters in the movie is a man known as "el poeta". During the domino games at the local bar he sites various authors to illustrate his opinions on everything from the game itself to the neighborhood gossip. He is just so cool with his subtle commentary. Another fine performance is put in for the character "Don Ru" who is one of the hubs of the story that ties several characters together. He is very credible given the unusual circumstances. Two of the best performances are put in by Bruno Bichir, as Abel, the love interest of the oh, so sexy Salma Hayek, as Alma. Abel is a sort of naive, yet street smart kid who looks like a younger Andy Garcia. He plays his role perfectly. The dialogue is as younsters talk to themselves complete with "buey" folowing every sentence. The movie has it's share of foul language but it doesn't sound nasty, it comes out just as Mexicans often talk. It isn't anything dirty or vile it is just colorful street talk. Now for the real reason for every man to watch this movie-Salma Hayek, what a goddess! She is just so beautiful that it matters not what she would say or do because most of us men don't care. Seriously though, she can act and does so quite convincingly. Her character is one of the main ones and she pulls it off, not her clothes, with conviction. Granted her chacter does not have the most depth in the movie but she is more than a pretty face, she can act. A galaxy of stars for Salma Hayek. This is one of the best dramas I've seen of late and quite possibly the best to come out Mexico in years. The setting is beautiful and very close to life. The situations are all to real and superbly presented in such a manner that will have you laughng and sad, happy and dissappointed, feeling tragic and triumphant, much like in real life. This is an excellent movie, a little long, but well worth the viewing experience. This is Mexican cinema at it's finest.
Rating:
Summary: A realistic "Callegon de Milagros"
Review: An excellent drama offset by comedic situations and some great acting."Midaq Alley" captures life around a neighborhood in Mexico City complete with intertwined lives and surprising tangles in the web of life. The story has a soap opera quality but is much more grand and much more realistic than the sappy soaps. The movie is a peek into the trials and tribulations of ordinary lives with at times extraordinary circumstances. It covers a variety of contemporary issues addressing life in the DF today. It is very difficult to explain other than to say that it is well worth viewing to draw your your own conclusions. There is alot going on in the story. The acting is superb and very gritty, giving the movie a sense of authenticity. There is a whole cast of characters that have their roles big and small but all lend credence to the movie. One of my favorite characters in the movie is a man known as "el poeta". During the domino games at the local bar he sites various authors to illustrate his opinions on everything from the game itself to the neighborhood gossip. He is just so cool with his subtle commentary. Another fine performance is put in for the character "Don Ru" who is one of the hubs of the story that ties several characters together. He is very credible given the unusual circumstances. Two of the best performances are put in by Bruno Bichir, as Abel, the love interest of the oh, so sexy Salma Hayek, as Alma. Abel is a sort of naive, yet street smart kid who looks like a younger Andy Garcia. He plays his role perfectly. The dialogue is as younsters talk to themselves complete with "buey" folowing every sentence. The movie has it's share of foul language but it doesn't sound nasty, it comes out just as Mexicans often talk. It isn't anything dirty or vile it is just colorful street talk. Now for the real reason for every man to watch this movie-Salma Hayek, what a goddess! She is just so beautiful that it matters not what she would say or do because most of us men don't care. Seriously though, she can act and does so quite convincingly. Her character is one of the main ones and she pulls it off, not her clothes, with conviction. Granted her chacter does not have the most depth in the movie but she is more than a pretty face, she can act. A galaxy of stars for Salma Hayek. This is one of the best dramas I've seen of late and quite possibly the best to come out Mexico in years. The setting is beautiful and very close to life. The situations are all to real and superbly presented in such a manner that will have you laughng and sad, happy and dissappointed, feeling tragic and triumphant, much like in real life. This is an excellent movie, a little long, but well worth the viewing experience. This is Mexican cinema at it's finest.
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Summary: A well told story
Review: Beginning with a game of dominoes in a Mexico City cantina, we are introduced to the people who frequent this neighborhood bar and then to their families, and the extended family of their poor neighborhood, ironically known as Midaq Alley or Callejon de los Milagros. We watch helplessly as a series of events unfold drawing in other characters and changing their lives forever. As the film progresses, this same game of dominoes begins again and again. Each time, we see how the same basic sequence of events unfold through the eyes of a different set of characters and and how their lives are changed forever. It's as though the game of dominoes is a metaphor for life. At some level each life touches another and determines what will happens to the other characters. A decision taken by one character limits and directs the choices of the others. Not having had the advantage of reading the novel in advance of renting the movie, I did not have a preconceived notion of how the characters should behave, or how they stacked up against the book. Generally the translation of a novel into a movie is sketchy at best. However, taken at face value Midaq Alley works very well on film. The plot is strong and the characters are well defined. What appears to be a slight nuance in one sequence becomes the obvious catalyst that motivates a character in a later sequence. The whole effect ties the characters together as an extended family, a neighborhood, a nation, and finally as archetypes for the human experience. I recommend Midaq Alley as the best type of "art film" -- one that serves as a catalyst for thought and discussion.
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Summary: Wonderfully depressing!
Review: Don't miss this film (rent it until the price comes down!)! The different and over-lapping points of view are refreshing and clever. It's the only movie I've seen with Salma Hayek where she actually *acts*! It's sad that in order to attact an American audience, they made the cover look like it's a soft-porn flic!
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Summary: Different Perspectives Played Out in a Game of Dominos
Review: Egyptian writer Naguib Mahfuiz won the Nobel Prize for this complex story originally set in Cairo and transposed to Mexico City (El Callejon de los milagros) and the result was a 1995 Mexican film that won essentially every award available after its release. Now ten years later if it looks a bit less than tidy in production elements including acting, this film at least served notice that the Mexican film industry was coming of age (and producing such greats as 'Amores Perros', 'Y tu mama tambien', 'El Crimen del Padre Amaro', etc).
MIDAQ ALLEY is a poor neighborhood in Mexico City populated by a group of folk whose lives interact in complex ways. There are three central characters - Alma (Salma Hayek), Susanita (Margarita Sanz) and Rutilio (Ernesto Gomez Cruz) - each of whom is a dreamer and as such pursues lives that result in dire circumstances. Rutilio, while married to the long-suffering ignored Eusebia (Delia Casanova) and father to an aimless son Chava (Juan Manuel Bernal) - is a closeted gay man whose sexuality becomes public when he encounters Jimy (Esteban Soberanes). His son discovers the two in embrace and beats him severely, forcing Chava to flee Midaq Alley to the US to escape the law and his father's anger. Chava's best friend Abel (Bruno Bichir) is in love with the beautiful Alma but agrees to flee with Chava to the US, pledging he will return to marry Alma when he has become 'wealthy in America'.
Alma feels forsaken and it is not long before she gives in to a smarmy pimp who removes her from Midaq Alley with the promise of wealth, beautiful clothes, and drugs.... Susanita is a less than attractive spinster who owns the boarding house where many of the charaacters live. She is convinced by Alma's fortune telling mother Dona Cata (Maria Rojo) that love is on the way which only allows Susanita to become enamored with a young wily thief Guicho (Luis Felipe Tovar) who marries her for her money and dumps her.
Each of these character's stories is told through separate chapters that start from an initial unity of dialogue over a game of dominos and demonstrate the various perceptions of versions of 'truth'. The concept works well and the stories are better fleshed out because of the technique. The film is well photographed, moves with a rapid pace for a two hour + movie, and is only weak in the acting from the conprimario roles, each of which remains nebulously unexplained and frustrating. The main characters give it their all and the result is a film that almost becomes compelling. Were it re-made today, given the growth in Mexican cinema prestige, it probably would be a powerful movie. Grady Harp, February 2005
Rating:
Summary: A good film which could have been great....
Review: First of all, I'd have to say that the first half hour is very weak, mainly because it features very little of Salma Hayek. In my opinion Bruno Bichir (Abel) and she carry the movie, while I didn't find the rest of the acting as stellar as others have. I didn't think the role of Eusebia (Delia Casanova) was very well acted, nor did I find any of the actresses to be very convincing when they cried. Sure, they may be good in the comedic or sarcastic aspects of their roles, but when called upon to show any real pathos I think that they all failed miserably (this includes the Susanita character as well as Alma's mother). I also thought that we were introduced to too many characters too quickly... we get to see 8 of the main male characters in the first 60 seconds, which is entirely too much for me to keep track of, especially when only a couple of them have more than one line. Keep in mind that I had this difficulty even though I'm pretty familiar with Mahfouz's novel. So until we get to know the characters to some extent (and some of them we never know), I found it difficult to get involved. The film really takes off when it focuses on the relationship between Alma and Abel (though Ru's relationship with the young man is also an important aspect of the story), not in small part because these are the two most convincingly portrayed/acted characters in the film. The story line is as compelling as Mahfouz's, even if it does not follow it all that faithfuly, and that's as high a praise one can give a movie. On the other hand, the DVD is a rip-off, the subtitles can not be turned off, only the credits are shown in a letter-boxed format (the rest of the film is full frame), and the film has been poorly mastered, with shadows really blocking up. Some thoughts on the film adaptation: Naguib Mahfouz is one of my favourite authors, and I consider Midaq Alley one of his better works. When you condense a 250 page novel down to a 2 hour movie, you can expect a lot to get lost in the translation, with a lot of subplots and characters to be truncatted, if not elided altogether. And that is probably the worst thing about this movie. While the major characters are (fairly) well characterised, we simply don't know enough (or entirely too much, depending on your view) about the peripheral characters. Consider Macario.
Who?
Oh, you know... the butcher.
Who?
You know, the guy that (the very intoxicated) Abel pours his heart out to in the bar. It doesn't make much sense that Abel would do that in the context of the movie, but if you read the book (and realise that Macario seems to be a combination of Uncle Kamil and the baker Jaada) that it makes a lot more sense. Macario is also the guy who turns Zacarias (the beggar king) and Doc Beltran (the dentist) in to the police. Which of course begs the question of what crime they had committed... again, you need to go to the book if you want to know. Nor does the movie really describe what Zacarias does, and his relationship with the butcher and his wife, nor is Macarios' submission to his wife really explained or detailed (although we do see his wife driving him out of his shop). Now let us consider the poet... in the book he is the paragon of virtue, sort of an Islamic Ned Flanders, while in the movie he is reduced to something like a proselytizing version of Uncle Billy in "It's a Wonderful Life". The poet actually seems to be an amalgamation of two characters from the book, and not an effective one at that. I don't mind that the film takes liberties with the book; what I do mind is that the adaptation seems to have included a number of characters to no great effect. All of the characters I mentioned above could have been totally removed from the movie to no ill effect, and their inclusion simply makes the film more confusing.
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