Misfortunes of Imaginary Beings: 04/01/25

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

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.