Ten excellent Spanish-language filmsFeb 09 '04 (Updated Jan 08 '07) Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line There are some very interesting, creative and original Hispanic films as well as some established masterpieces!
First off, I’m going to interpret “Hispanic” as meaning Spanish language films (with English subtitles). The dictionary definition of “Hispanic” says “relating to the people, speech, or culture of Spain or Latin America” and the term “Latin America” is defined as "any of the countries of North, Central, or South America that speak Latin or Portuguese”, so one might argue, I suppose, that this category could also include Portuguese language films from Brazil, but for simplicity, I’m going to limit choices to films in the Spanish language. Otherwise, I would have surely included Central Station (see my review at Central Station) and possibly Black Orpheus (see my review at Black Orpheus) as well. I will also not consider those films directed by the great Spanish director Luis Buñuel that are in French. Otherwise, I might have included Belle De Jour, L’Age D’Or, or That Obscure Object of Desire. 1. Butterfly (1999). This is a film set in Spain in 1936, shortly before the brief Republican experiment was squashed by civil war. It is about a special relationship between a boy of eight, Mocho, and his elderly school teacher, Don Gregorio. Don Gregorio helps the boy adapt to school and takes him under his wing to teach him about nature, art, and life. The idyllic tone of most of the film is brought to a crashing and painful end as the political climate grows increasingly repressive. See my review at Butterfly. 2. Veronico Cruz (1988). This award winning film directed by Miguel Pereira, is set in rural Argentina where a young Indian boy is growing up in a poor town under the care of his grandmother, his mother having died and his father having left for greener pastures in the city. He is taken under the wing of the newly arrived school teacher, who hopes to raise the boy out of poverty through education. When the grandmother dies, leaving the boy without a care-taker, his teacher resolves to take him to the city in an effort to find his father, introducing the boy to a whole new world of experience. In the end, the film introduces a somewhat depressing element of inevitability, when, despite the teacher’s best efforts, the cycle of poverty is passed on to still another generation. See my review at Veronico Cruz. 3. Strawberry and Chocolate (1994). This Cuban film directed by Tomás Gutiérrez explores the treatment of gays in Cuba during the early days of the Castro regime, as well as the potential for tolerance to emerge on the level of individuals. The three main characters are a gay artist, a straight male college student, and a somewhat older woman – who develop strong ties to one another, defying conventional proscriptions. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Film. See my review at Strawberry and Chocolate. 4. Y Tu Mama Tambien (2002). While it is difficult to choose among the best Mexican films, I’m giving the nod to this one for its originality and sensuality. Though a bit raunchy, at times, this movie explores issues seldom touched upon in film. Two rather libidinous seventeen-year-old Mexican youths are left at loose ends when their respective girl-friends split for the summer. Tenoch (played by Diego Luna) comes from a wealthy family while his pal Julio (Gael Garcia Bernal) is from a poor family, but the two initially handle the class difference well enough. They encounter Luisa (Meribel Verdu), the somewhat older but beautiful, feline wife of Tenoch’s overly self-important cousin. Tenoch thinks to seduce her but, in the end, both he and Julio are seduced by her and introduced into realms of sexuality about which they had no previous understanding. We discover, in the end, that Luisa’s willingness to engage in such outrageous experimentation is motivated by her knowledge that she is terminally ill but that the boys friendship with one another is unable to withstand the excess of intensity of their new experiences. See my review at Y Tu Mama Tambien. 5. The Grandfather (1999). I love the premise of this Oscar-nominated film from Spain. A proud elderly nobleman has returned to this hometown in Spain from America where he was once the wealthiest and most influential member of the community, but he is now largely destitute, though no less proud. His return home has been motivated by his learning from his son’s last letter before his premature death that one of the son’s two children was, in fact, the result of an illicit affair that his wife had had with an artist. Thus, one of the old man’s two granddaughters is not his legitimate heir and he is determined to find out which. The grandfather and his daughter-in-law have a terribly strained relationship, but the grandfather is adored by both granddaughters. The daughter-in-law acknowledges the truth of the son’s assertion, but refuses to say which daughter is illegitimate. The grandfather sets out to determine which is which by closely watching the manner of behavior and the predilections of the two children. As the film progresses, he convinces himself from these observations that the older one is the natural granddaughter and the other illegitimate. Furthermore, although both granddaughters are devoted to the old man, the devotion of the older granddaughter reveals itself as particularly strong. She wants, for example, to stay with and care for the grandfather rather than moving to Paris with her mother. The daughter-in-law ultimately accedes to the desire of both her daughter and her father-in-law to permit them to live together but reveals at the same time that it is, in fact, the younger child that is the natural daughter. The proud old man must now choose, in effect, between genuine love and his pride regarding genetic relationship. See my review at The Grandfather. 6. El Norte (1983). This is an independent, U.S.-made Spanish-language film produced in association with PBS. It centers on a brother and sister, Enrique and Rosa Xuncax, forced to flee Guatemala due to the political activities of their recently murdered father. They are driven by fanciful beliefs about life in America, derived from exposure to U.S. magazines, to undertake an odyssey to el norte (the north, or U.S.). First they must deal with prejudice in Mexico, then the difficult and illegal passage into America (through a rat-infested old water pipe), and, finally, the meager opportunities afforded illegal immigrants in America. See my review at El Norte. 7. All About My Mother (1999). The transition between this Academy Award winning Spanish film's opening and its main body is almost shocking. It begins in a conventional, middle-class kind of setting where a single-mom and nurse, Manuela (Cecilia Roth), is devoted to her charming and intelligent son, Estaban. On his 18th birthday, he expresses his heart-felt desire to know about his father – who his mother has studiously avoided mentioning and whom Estaban believes to be dead. When Estaban is suddenly and tragically killed, his mother makes the cataclysmic decision to honor his memory and desire by returning to her former life so as to seek out the father, who is actually still quite alive. We quickly discover that the reason for Manuela’s secrecy is that the world she once inhabited was comprised of prostitutes and transsexuals and that Estaban’s father, in Manuela’s blunt words, came home one day in their previous life together, with breasts larger than her own. Back in her old haunts, Manuela becomes a kind of mother hen to a variety of displaced and disparate characters, including an aging actress, a pregnant nun, and a transvestite. See my review at All About My Mother. 8. Amores Perros (2000). Gael Garcia Bernal, who appeared in Y Tu Mama Tambien, is also one of the stars in this intricately structured film that creates an intersection between three parallel stories. One story focuses on Octavio who covets his brothers wife, believing that she actually prefers him to the rather brutish brother. A second story explores the activities of a street bum who collects and cares for stray dogs but who is also a paid hit-man. The third story involves a family man who abandons his family in preference for his lover -- a successful model. Her career, however, abruptly ends when she is severely injured in a car crash. All three story lines are tragic in nature and contribute to the appropriateness of the film’s title, which, roughly translated means, “Love’s a bitch.” See my review at Amores Perros. 9. Like Water For Chocolate (1992). America fell in love with this Mexican film when it was released in 1992. In has a fairy tale feel to it, replete with an evil mother and sister and the equivalent of a fairy godmother and a prince charming. Tita is the youngest daughter in a family that has a near-sacred tradition of requiring that the last daughter in each generation remain unmarried and care for her parents. When she and Pedro fall madly in love, they are forbidden from marrying, but Pedro is offered, in her place, marriage to one of the older sisters. Rightly or wrongly, Pedro reasons that the only way that he will be able to be near his beloved Tita will be to agree to marry her sister, but the arrangement is far more bitter than sweet for Tita. Tita, who has grown up in the kitchen under the tutelage of the kindly cook, has developed not only exceptional culinary skills, but, amazingly, magical powers to impart to her concoctions her feelings – both the positive ones and the vengeful ones. The results, though highly entertaining for the viewer, are devastating for her adversaries. See my review at Like Water For Chocolate. 10. Camila (1984). You will not be left feeling sympathetic to the Catholic Church after watching this Argentinian romantic tragedy. Camila, a young socialite in Argentina of the 1840’s, has inherited her grandmother’s independent spirit, but Camila’s father is old-school and has no use for either his mother or his daughter’s shenanigans. Camila is awaiting the kind of love that will sweep her off her feet and encounters it, of all places, in the form of the newly-arrived young Jesuit priest. Such a romance was entirely forbidden and leaving the priesthood not an option in that time and place. Nevertheless, Camila and the young priest commit the sacrilege of running off together, hoping to “disappear” from notice as teachers in a small, rural community. When discovered, they are condemned to death. See my review at Camila. Well, that's my list of ten top Hispanic movies and why. I hope they provide you with some ideas for new film experiences and, if so, that you also find the film(s) worthwhile. ************************************************************ You may also enjoy my other genre lists for non-English language films: Ten More Excellent Spanish-Language Films Coming-of-age – Outside the USA! 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