Misfortunes of Imaginary Beings: April 2025

A blog formerly known as Bookishness / By Charles Matthews

"Dazzled by so many and such marvelous inventions, the people of Macondo ... became indignant over the living images that the prosperous merchant Bruno Crespi projected in the theater with the lion-head ticket windows, for a character who had died and was buried in one film and for whose misfortune tears had been shed would reappear alive and transformed into an Arab in the next one. The audience, who had paid two cents apiece to share the difficulties of the actors, would not tolerate that outlandish fraud and they broke up the seats. The mayor, at the urging of Bruno Crespi, explained in a proclamation that the cinema was a machine of illusions that did not merit the emotional outbursts of the audience. With that discouraging explanation many ... decided not to return to the movies, considering that they already had too many troubles of their own to weep over the acted-out misfortunes of imaginary beings."
--Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

Thursday, April 3, 2025

If I Should Die Before I Wake (Carlos Hugo Christensen, 1952)

Néstor Zavarce and Maria A. Troncoso in If I Should Die Before I Wake

Cast: Néstor Zavarce, Bianca del Prado, Floren Delbene, Homero Carpena, Enrique de Pedro, Virginia Romay, Marisa Nuñez, Maria A. Troncoso, Marta Quintela. Screenplay: Alejandro Casona, based on a story by Cornell Woolrich. Cinematography: Pablo Tabernero. Production design: Gori Muñoz. Film editing: José Gallego. Music: Julián Bautista.

This handsomely filmed adaptation of a story by Cornell Woolrich about a boy who attempts to catch a serial killer preying on little girls at his school somewhat gratuitously casts the story as a fable. It generates suspense but sometimes stretches plausibility.

Jamón, Jamón (Bigas Luna, 1992)

Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem in Jamón, Jamón

Cast: Penélope Cruz, Javier Bardem, Jodi Mollà, Stefania Sandrelli, Anna Galiena, Juan Diego, Tomás Penco. Screenplay: Cuca Canals, Bigas Luna. Cinematography: José Luis Alcaine. Production design: Gloria Martí-Palanqués, Pep Oliver. Film editing: Teresa Font. Music: Nicola Piovani.

With its copulative roundelay, nude bullfighting, and death by ham, Bigas Luna's satiric black comedy Jamón, Jamón confused and offended some of its early viewers, who may have forgotten that Spain is the country that produced Goya and Dalí.

Tuesday, April 1, 2025

Raising Victor Vargas (Peter Sollett, 2002)

Krystal Rodriguez, Silvestre Rasuk, and Victor Rasuk in Raising Victor Vargas

Cast: Victor Rasuk, Judy Marte, Altagracia Guzman, Silvestre Rasuk, Krystal Rodriguez, Donna Maldonado, Kevin Rivera, Melonie Diaz, Matthew Roberts, Alexander Garcia, John Ramos, Theresa Martinez, Wilfree Vasquez. Screenplay: Peter Sollett, Eva Vives. Cinematography: Tim Orr. Production design: Judy Becker. Film editing: Myron Kerstein. Music: Roy Nathanson.

Teenage Victor (Victor Rasuk) is being raised by his Dominican grandmother (Altagracia Guzman) in a New York City apartment with his half-siblings, Vicki (Krystal Rodriguez) and Nino (Silvestre Rasuk). The sins of Victor's absent father are visited on him frequently by his grandmother, who blames him for corrupting his brother and sister. For example, when Nino is caught masturbating, her immediate response is to scapegoat Victor, and she hauls him down to social services, demanding that they take him off her hands. She's stymied in the effort, of course, but from then on his task is to try to get back in her good graces. That's complicated, however, by his pursuit of the prettiest girl in the neighborhood, Judy (Judy Marte), and his awkward attempts to figure out what it means to be a man. Though it maybe lacks some of the neo-realistic grit its setting needs, Raising Victor Vargas is a likable coming-of-age story with a capable cast of unknown performers.