Feb
4
El callejon de los milagros
Posted by: Brian | February 4, 2009 | Comments Off on El callejon de los milagros
El callejon de los milagros was a very confusing and sad film. It reminded me of Los Olvidados where the whole film revolved around peoples misfortunes in life. As in the movie Mecanica Nacional, the father shows he is the central figure and mistreats his family by mishandling his son Chava and also his wife Eusebia, whom he verbally and physically attacked after she confronts him about the affair, but then shows his weak side as he cries for his son on her lap after he runs away.
It can be mentioned that the men were depicted as being machismo as they treated the women in their lives and women in general like trash, such as Don Ru who cheats on his wife ,the jeweler Don Fidel to Alma as he tries to marry her, Jose Luis to Alma as he forces her into prostitution, Chava to the landlady, Susanita, for taking her money, Chava to his own wife as he attempts to pick up Alma’s friend right in front of her, the husband Guicho to Susanita for marrying her for the money as he steals from her, and even Alma herself to Abel as she misleads him. It seems everyone attempted to screw each-other over as scandals broke out everywhere. The director seems to have attempted to make a soap opera (like tres destinos) in a film format and made it in a way to serve the appetite of popular culture that are intrigued by the exaggerated and scandalous plots and story lines. The issue of classes and self-worth was a central theme as the mainly lower-middle class characters in this film believed that wealth was important to attain for the purpose of both living well off and also having social status in society as in the case of Alma.
What I found to be quite profound was the very end of the movie. One could sense that
