SPAN 404B Week 1 Post – Review of Film “Le Magnifique”

“Le Magnifique” / “The Man from Acapulco” (English Title)

While watching this film, I must admit I was a bit challenged to understand its direct relation to depictions of Latin America in Hollywood. Not only is it a French and not a Hollywood film, but beside the fact that some of the setting is centered in Mexico, very little of the plot appears to be related to Latin America. In addition, the few Mexicans that are shown in scenes of the film are mostly “backdrops,” appearing as either serenading bands or little men wearing enormous sombreros staring in awe at Bob St. Claire (the male protagonist). This being said, I would like to touch on a few themes throughout the film that I find relevant to the course objectives.

First, this movie appears as a strong example of the blurring reality between fiction and real life of the author –  Francois Merlin, and his penned protagonist Bob St. Claire.  The plot line he creates for Bob St. Claire mimics his more common place life challenges; when Merlin succeeds, so does St. Claire, and vice versa. Therefore, the film can be seen as a farce demonstrating the influence of an author’s desires and world views on their artistic works. It is unclear to the extent to which Merlin believes he is St. Claire at the beginning of the story, but he clearly indicates that the physical appearance of St. Claire’s love interest in his novel, Tatiana, has been directly taken from his neighbor, Christine. In addition to the direct relationship between the protagonists and the “real” characters in this film, Merlin also uses his novel as an emotional outlet. When his publisher or plumber denies his requests for assistance in some matter, he dreams up a scene in his novel about their unfortunate demise. Additionally, later in the film, Merlin begins to take offense to the characteristics that women in his life, Christine and his maid, enjoy in St. Claire. This is because he feels that some of those characteristics are not applicable to his own nature, and therefore are seen as his own character flaws. This results in him destroying the life of his protagonist in order to release his anger and knock St. Claire down a notch. Perhaps, this expression of anger towards his better counterpart – St. Claire is Merlin’s way of coping with a personal fear of being undesirable. All of these examples elude to Merlin using his novel as an outlet to navigate his own life’s desires through the world of his characters.

Additionally, although somewhat dismissed in my first paragraph, I do believe that the representations of Mexicans in this film are still accurate impressions held of Latin Americans when in their more docile film roles. “The Man from Acapulco” uses Latin American cultural music and dress to make Mexicans appear comical through out the film –  in their miraculously appearing serenading bands and in giant sombreros that function to make those wearing them look extremely small. These caricatures of Mexicans may have been created principally for their comical effect, but I also think it is likely that the French filmmakers felt that these cultural practices were humorous in their regular form and/or utilized them to depict Mexicans as non-intimidating in nature.

In all, I believe this film was a useful practice to analyze the blurred line between fiction and reality, as well as a useful primer for the more subtle influence of filmmakers’ impressions on their works – specifically the impact of their impressions of Latin America. This French farce was quite successful because it very easily brought to attention the blurring of reality that we can now apply to future films. However, in the case of the coming pictures, we will not be able to see the film producers on screen as we could see Merlin in “Le Magnifique” and therefore we will need to do more work to decipher the connections/impressions carried from creator to creation moving forward.