Introduction
Movies have grown to become of different importance to different individuals. Since the inception of movies in the 1860s movies have continued to evolve and the modern day movies can be classified into numerous categories such as educational, documentary, action, horror, thriller, drama and so on (Hill and Gibson 169).
As such they offer a strong media tool to communicate to the world about the different topics and the cultural attributes (Acker 69) This essay reviews the main characters in two Latino movies; ‘Like water for chocolate’ directed by Alfonso Aurau, and ‘Maria full of grace’ directed by Joshua Marston. The main characters in these two movies are women; Maria in the first movie, and Tita in the second one, who are forced to make big decisions that potentially change the course of their lives’ destiny and fate.
Maria full of Grace
The movie begins by presenting Maria Alvarez, a young 17 year old Columbian girl who works in a flower plantation where the working conditions and environment are pathetic. The girl has to keep the job so as to support her family since she is the only bread winner for the family. She gets impregnated by a man she does not love and following a series of unjust treatment from her boss, she decides to quit the job even though the family is highly unsupportive of that move (Janet 6).
Desperately looking for another job, she heads to Bogota, where she finds a job opening which requires her to act as a drug mule and traffic drugs to the United States of America.
After weighing the options she has; being pregnant and coming from a humble background, she accepts the job and subsequently swallows sixty two wrapped heroin pellets and flies to the United States alongside her friend, Blanca. Once in the United States she is almost caught by the customs who notice her uncommon behavior but escapes the x-ray scan thanks to her pregnancy.
They are retained in a hotel room so that they can give all the drugs they had swallowed (King 36). One of the drug mules, Lucy falls sick after one of the pellets raptures in her stomach and the drug barons are forced to burst her stomach in a murderous act so as to retrieve the pellets. When the culprits go to dispose the body of Lucy, Maria and Blanca escape into Lucy’s sister house.
After sometime the sister finds out that Lucy is dead and consequently throws both Maria and Blanca out of her house. They decide to return the drugs to the traffickers and are paid their dues. Some of the cash that Maria receives from the traffickers is used by her to send Lucy’s body back home. They both plan to return home but Only Blanca does so and Maria opts to stay in the United States.
Like water for Chocolate
This movie is a love story that takes place in Mexico and revolves around a lady named Tita de la Garza. Tita is the last born girl in her family and the family customs, according to her mother forbids last born girls to be married. Instead they are supposed to stay at home and take care of their mothers. As such, although Tita is in love with Pedro, she is not allowed to marry him. Instead, her mother, Mama Elena offers Pedro Rosaura, the elder sister of Tita for marriage to Pedro (Neibylski 36).
Pedro accepts to marry her but reveals to Tita that he accepted to marry Rosaura so that he can be close to Tita. Mama Elena forces Tita to prepare the wedding banquet for her sister’s engagement party. Tita prepares a meal which makes all the guests burn with lust and sexual desires for their lovers (Neibylski 41). One day Pedro gives Tita a bouquet of flower which she uses to prepare another concussion the gives everyone lustrous feelings.
After her mother notices some attraction between Pedro and Tita, she decides to send Rosaura, Pedro and their young baby boy to Texas, United States so that Pedro can be far from Tita.
Tita acts rebellious after receiving the news that the boy died on the way to the US and after a confronting with her mother that leads to her breaking her nose and stating that “there is no room for lunatics in the farm”. Dr. Brown decides to stay with Tita in his home in Texas and a close friendship develops between the two with Tita promising to marry him some day. She however could not quench her desire for Pedro.
Mama Elena dies after a rebels attack and during the funeral, sexual tension develop between Tita and Pedro. Rosaura gives birth to her second child, Ezperanza and after learning that she will never have another child, she says that the family customs will be upheld and daughter will never get married so that she can take care of her.
A certain time Pedro and Tita make and Tita almost gets pregnant. Soon after, Gertrudis appear with the soldier who escaped with her having become a war veteran and the soldier having become a commander of the revolutionary army. They spend the night dancing and during a bonfire, Mama Elena ghost appears telling her to leave the ranch.
She states her position and soon the ghost shrinks to a flame and burns Pedro who is by the fire. Tita and Dr. Brown help nurse Pedro to health and Getrudis advice Tita to bathe with water mixed with vinegar so as to take away the possible pregnancy from Pedro. She soon discovers that she wasn’t pregnant after all and when Dr. Brown proposes to Tita, she refuses stating that she has lost her virginity to another man.
Twenty years afterwards, during Ezperanza’s wedding with Dr. Brown’s son, it is discovered that Rosaura had died from stomach complications after an argument with Tita about Ezperanza’s future. The movie comes to an end with Tita making love to Pedro who dies after a sensuous orgasm. Tina sets the whole ranch on fire and when Ezperanza returns to the ranch, she only finds Tina’s cookbook and her recipes. The final scene shows Ezperanza’s daughter who is named Tita longing for the recipes of her mother and Great Aunt Tita.
The choices made by these two women
In the first movie; Maria full of grace, the main character whose name is Maria makes some radical decisions that influence the course of her life.
The first decision she makes is choosing to work in the flower plantation where she can earn a living and be able to support her family which shows us that she is a responsible young lady. As she works in the farm, she has to endure the harsh working condition and the environment of the farm and the series of unjust treatment by her boss before quitting employment show us her character of patience and endurance.
Another consequence of choosing to work in this farm is that she gets pregnant from the man she does not love and therefore she has to get a child out of wedlock. A good film should have a good transition to ensure that there is a flow of the plot and the scenes as shown. Maria then makes a choice of quitting from her employment even though she is the only bread winner for her family.
The decision seems a wrong one since this causes the family to be left without a livelihood and causes her to act in desperation and consequently leading her to accept a job that requires her to act as a drug mule which is a very risky venture hence showing us her character of being a risk taker.
Maria accepts to be one of the drug mule and as a result of accepting this job, she is given the assignment of smuggling drugs into the United States of America and this has been used to present ideas and cultural backgrounds of the cultures (Merritt 102). This is a high risk because if she were to be caught by the authorities, she could land a jail sentence that could worsen her situation.
Maria is very fortunate because her pregnancy helped her escape the x-ray and from being caught by the customs when she was portraying uncommon behavior. By taking this job, Maria was digging her own grave. However, she was fortunate since she had not fallen sick and killed when she swallowed the pellets unlike Lucy who fell sick after one of the pellets raptures in her stomach and the drug barons were forced to burst her stomach in a murderous act so as to retrieve the pellets.
Her involvement in this job makes her see the death of one of the drug mule, Lucy which makes her and Blanca to escape to Lucy’s sister house and chose not tell her the where about of her sister since they did not want to hurt her and when she discovers, the two are thrown out hence showing her character of being secretive.
When they are thrown out by Lucy’s sister, they are forced to return the drugs to the traffickers who decide to pay them their dues and therefore they get money to Lucy’s body back home and finally they have to make the decision to remain in the United States. These decisions seem unwise of her and as such, her family is thought to suffer from her neglecting them.
In the second movie; ‘Like water for chocolate’ the main character is Tita who makes a series of decisions that negatively impact her life. At first, she falls in love with Pedro and since she is the last born, she is forbidden from marrying yet she falls in love with him.
This consequently leads to her mother giving her elder sister Rosaura to Pedro so that she does not marry him and therefore showing us Tita is a victim of circumstance since she is a last born, she cannot marry. Tita uses her cooking expertise to prepare a meal that intoxicates all the people present at the engagement party of her sister. This meal causes sexual desires in all the people who eat it and this shows us her character of being shrewd and a schemer though the decision is not good on moral standards.
Creativity is seen in Tita where when she was given a bouquet of flower by Pedro, she uses to prepare another concussion the gives everyone lustrous feelings.
Tita’s consistent love and attraction to Pedro causes her mother to send to send them away to Texas, United States so that Tita can be far away from Pedro which leads to the death of the boy which causes her rebelliously and confront her mother and she is consequently taken in by Dr.Brown who she promises to marry because of close friendship that develops between them, however, she rejects him when he proposes to her showing lack of commitment on her side.
Subsequent decisions which she makes throughout the movie seem all faulty and as such, she is presented as the evil one though she is fighting to defend what she may claim to be her rightful desire for Pedro.
It is seen in later stages that her sister Rosaura dies of digestive complications and this is after they have an argument with Tita about the future of Rosaura’s daughter, Experanza. The movie comes to close with her setting the whole ranch on fire and killing Pedro while having an extra marital affair with him.
The choices made by these two women in these movies are aimed at fulfilling their desires; one the desire for love and the other one the desire for money. The two characters are presented as making wrong decisions that ultimately have a negative impact in their life and destinies. Movies entertain, educate, inform as shown by these two (Cook 52).
The movie manages to make their story ring true due to the fact that both are Latino movies. Mexico is known to be a major source of drugs and many drug lords hail from Mexico. Movies are cultural artifacts that are made to depict attributes of the particular cultures that they feature (King 69).
These movies shows us the different cultures involved and helps us to appreciate the diffirent cultures that are there. The movie ‘ Maria full of grace’ shows how the impoverished communities of the Latino countries struggle to make ends meet and as such end up landing in the hands of drug traffickers. The second movie shows how pursuit for a lover through lustful triggers can cause much damage such as crimes of passion, and other forms of crimes.
The two characters in these two movies however have two major differences. They are passionately making radical decisions that impact their lives. The first movie; ‘Maria full of Grace’ has the main character making such decisions in pursuit of money while in the second one; ‘Like water for Chocolate’ has the main character making the decisions so as pursue her lustful desires for a married man.
In both these films the characters’ lives are changed, with the first movie; ‘Maria full of Grace’ ending with the character choosing to remain in the US to possibly pursue the ‘American Dream’. The second movie; ‘Like water for chocolate’ has Tita being changed for life as she burns their ranch and remains without many family members who she arguably killed.
Works Cited
Acker, Ally. Reel Women: Pioneers of the Cinema. New York: Continuum, 1991.
Cook, Pam. The Cinema Book. London: British Film Insitute, 1997.
Hill, John and Pamela Gibson. The Oxford Guide to Film Studies. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.
Janet, Maslin. “Review/ Film; Emotions So Strong You Can Taste Them.” New York Times review (1993): 3-14. Print.
King, Geoff. New Hollywood Cinema: An Introduction. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002.
Merritt, Greg. Celluloid Mavericks: A History of American Independent Film. New York: Thinder’s mouth Press, 2000.
Neibylski, Dianna. Heartburn, Humor and Hyperbole in Like Water for Chocolate. New York: Routledge, 1998.