Category: Responses

Cuando Chavo le haya llamado a Alma por el telefono hubo un sensido de esperanzo por un segundo. Originalmente pense que Chavo regrese pero cuando el linea se corto es hacerse evidente que en el mente de Alma que deba considerar o tomar un rumbo diferente. Cuando Alma lo supiera sobre la realidad del hombre misterioso ella esta muy disgustada por la situacion pero eventualmente ella cambia su mente. No entiende porque ella cambio su mente pero es posible ella descrubio los adventajes y como lo podria cambiar su situacion.

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 Alma did not truly love Abel and that she was misleading him the whole way. She lied when she said that she had waited for him, as she almost got married right after he left and went into prostitution at her own free will. She was promised a good life and was lied to by Jose Luis. It seems that only true person who was loyal was Abel for not breaking his promise but he ends up broken hearted and dead. I think that the director wanted to show that both sexes, not just men, can treat each with just as much disregard.

“El Callejon de los Milagros” is told in chapters, in which individual characters’ lives are explored and seen within a larger framework. The film is very frank in the way it depicts Mexico City and the society and is especially realistic in the portrayal of the culture. The chapters in which individual characters are explored, demonstrates an in depth analysis of how the characters function under the societal pressures of daily life. For example, the character, Rutilio constantly surrounds himself with men, which could be perceived simply as male camaraderie, and nothing more. With the pressures of the machismo culture, it is difficult to imagine how a man could openly identify himself as gay without being persecuted. As a result, Rufilio is forced to live his life according to the status quo. At first Rutilio’s sexual orientation is only hinted at by the indifference he shows towards his wife after she surprises him with an anniversary gift and the desire to make “love.” Yet over time it becomes apparent that he is sexually frustrated and emotionally disturbed after years of sustaining a façade. Rutilio shields his true identity by talking about how women are “muy complicados” and in addition the aggression he has towards his wife only seems to be natural after watching several other Mexican movies in which the men are abusive towards women.
Like other films we have watched in this class, “El Callejon de los Milagros” does not end well. The film is not formulaic and instead, emphasizes the problems that plague Mexico. The characters are all forced into situations as a result of pressure and societal constrictions. It seems that the characters are only able to go on with their lives as a result of having false dreams of hope. A mysterious man courts Alma and at this point it seems that there is hope and a possibility for a happy ending, when he responds that she can open her eyes, now that she is living her dream. However we discover that he wants to turn her into a prostitute, in which she eventually gives into. While Rutilio hopes to carry on his sexual relationship with the muchacho in secret, Alma hopes to be eventually reunited with Chava and lastly, Susanita hopes to find true love. All of the characters inspire hope in the audience, which could possibly signify the hope they have for their nation. However, like the other films, this hope cannot immediately mend or heal a nation.

I think this film had a lot to offer. It certainly portrayed issues of the working class in Mexico and their relationship to their external world. I also found really interesting how the film was divided into different parts, telling different stories from different perspectives. The stories always began by the same men playing dominos. I wonder what the symbolism of the dominos is. Probably it means how every action is caused by another action until someone ends up worse than the rest or better off.
Don Rutilio was a very interesting character. He is introduced with a hard personality when he yells at his son for not helping him at his bar. He tells his son that he should stop hanging out so much with his friend because people will start thinking he is gay. He seems really bothered by this at that point. He is really detached from his family externally, but in reality he does everything for them. Rutilio shows his real feelings when Chava, his son, leaves to the United States. He cries and tells his wife how they are left alone. The next part when he shows these feelings is when he realizes that Chava has named his son after his father, Rutilio. That’s the only point when Rutilio holds the kid and doesn’t want Chava to leave the house. His anniversary with his wife was also really weird. I don’t think it has anything to do with the fact that he was seeking other types of love. He just didn’t think grateful for anything, neither lunch nor the present, or the fact that his wife had made such a great effort to make him happy. It seemed like he had no purpose in his life at that point since everything made him angry and unsatisfied. He agreed to make love to his wife after she insisted a lot and seemed like he was just doing her a favor. His affair with the young boy from the store was surprisingly a public thing. People made fun of him, but no one to his face. Rutilio was still the same person towards everyone else and was still respected in spite of this.
The neighborhood was represented really well too, and seemed like everyone was struggling in some way, from economic to love. Love seemed like a place where everyone wanted to get, but couldn’t. At the end no couple was happy with each other; they had major fights of stealing, cheating, and commitment. However, this represents real life, and how people react to different issues.

Right off the bat, I would be interested in a queer studies perspective on this film.
Rutilio makes for one of the strangest gay characters I have ever seen portrayed in film.
In the opening sequence he is seen berating his son with a barrage of homophobic slurs.
An attitude that is emulated by his son later in the bar and finally in the shower scene.
But Rutilio is clearly attempting to cover up his own gay orientation.
What’s strange is he suddenly drops this cover and openly engages with the younger man at his bar and around town.
All this after 30 years of marriage?
It was odd.
Even more odd was his constant violent outbursts towards his wife.
Some sort of clinging on to his hetero-masculinity.
Of course it is the mother character who takes this burden on herself, as we see her being struck by branches in a smokey room.
(Some sort of purification? I know the Finns used Birch Branches to strike themselves in Saunas as a rejuvenating and purifying gesture.)
What’s frustrating is whether or not I found Rutilio to be absolutely pathetic, or,the most troubled, complex character of them all….
As for the rest…
Narrative structure and the us of POV (Point of View) on the same story was the saving grace of this film.
I had to leave at 7pm so never saw the end but I imagine the barber came back?
Interesting to learn that this film was awarded 26 times….

I also really liked the way the story was told. I almost think that the breaking of the chronology and the naming of the parts has become a very Mexican feature I have seen it on Amores perros and Amarte duele. Back in track, I agree on what you said about all the stories becoming one and all the characters affecting each others life, however I don’t think that they are victims of each other. I think that they just made the choices they thought or felt were right for them. As for Alma I think that she wanted to do something with her life and she saw in Jose Luis the only door towards a different lifestyle but not because she pitied herself but because she wanted a change.

Lo que me parecio mas interesante de la pelicula fue la transformacion de Alma. Al principio ella era el personaje mas virginal. Ella representaba pureza e inocencia y al final de la historia ella es una prostituta, lo cual la convierte en su propia antitesis. Aunque Alma pierde su virginidad en su nuevo trabajo parece que no ha perdido su inocencia y vulnerabilidad. Ella sigue siendo ingenua y pasiva, siempre esperando que la vida o “el destino” actuen por ella.
Algo que no causo perplejidad fue la logica detras de la decision de Alma y por eso es que me parece interesante su conversion. Pienso que talvez Alma vio en Jose Luis una oportunidad para tomar las riendas de su vida y dejar de esperar por un esposo pero tambien alma pudo haberse dejado deslumbrar por el dinero y las promesas materiales que le hizo Jose Luis o que quiza la curiosidad por el sexo la haya conducido hacia un estilo de vida del que no puso escaparse.

Maru, la amiga de Alma tambien me llamo la atencion porque ella representa a la mujer facil sin embargo ella no se involucra con el protibulo, lo cual es inesperado.

En terminos mas generales, me gusto la forma en que la pelicula se desarrolla porque no hay ninguna critica explicita de la sociedad Mexicana pero al mismo tiempo muestra los problemas que ciertos aspectos de esta causan a nivel social. La pelicula podria pertenecer completamente a la ficcion si no tuviera tantos aspectos en comun con Mexico como la falta de oportunidades, la homophobia, el machismo, la supersticion y privacidad colectiva. La discriminacion basada en la preferencias sexuales fue la discusion mas importante para mi en la pelicula porque ese episodio afecto a todos los habitantes del callejon y fue mostrado de forma real sin mostrar extremos no situaciones improbable con las cuales es dificil relacionarse.

This film was very indicative of modern Mexican culture. Enlightening common problems and issues of members of Mexico City’s working class. It also touches on many themes that are prominent throughout the movies we have seen so far in class such as machismo, gender relations, notions of the family and of national identity as well as the battle between traditional values and modern more liberal ideologies that the people of Mexico have been influenced by. We seen this with the contrast between the old and young characters. The older characters are frustrated with their lives in the barrio and have come to terms that they will probably be stuck their for the remainder of their lives. On the other hand the young protagonists have a longing and hope for a life full of love and better economic standing and the desire to emigrate to the United States to make enough money to try to rise in the social class structure of Mexico and be able to marry into a higher class. Throughout the film we see the transformation Mexico went through in the late 20th century from a closed market economy to a participant of the Americanized global culture. The director to some extent is critical of this route to embracing modernization and opening up national boarders.

First and foremost, I want to say that I really enjoyed this movie. I really liked the multiple narrative layers which tells the same story through different perspectives which in the end intertwine and be come one story. Like the callejon in which they live and live different lives, the narrative funnels into a shared space. One thread which I think strongly connects the different narratives is the aspect of victimization. Even though athey work for respect and to be different from those who allowed themselves to fall by the wayside, they all end up becoming victims.

In the first narrative, Rutilio’s son allows his father’s indecency to push him to violence which later condemns everyone around him. He leaves without dealing with the consequences and overestimates these consequences so that his leaving only harms. It’s intereseting to me to see how quick he is to act as if his violent act on the young man was actually an attack on himself. It’s somewhat representative of his state of mind which allows him to perpetually believe that he is a victim.

This same victim mentality is seen in the next narrative of Alma. Even though she presents characteristics of an independent young woman, her mentatlity of being a helpless victim leads to her domination by others. First, she feels she is somewhat less of a person for being a virgin, and so she decides to date the young man who is really quite in love with her. She acts clueless to what she is doing as if she weren’t victimizing herself. I think she represents a kind of girl who thinks everyone is out to harm her, and so harms herself before they can. She represents a learned helplessness which she uses to never have to work hard to break the bindings which hold her back. Though she speaks of passion, she likes the comfort of the box she is put into as a lower class Mexican girl. It is with this belief that she agrees to marry the older man she doesn’t know and later agrees to become a prostitute. I think her role in the movie is to demise our belief of such personalities as being of social causation because in her we see a desire to be pitied unlike that of her boyfriend that went to Houston or even her girlfriend Maru.

EVentually, the boy that went to Houston allowed this victim allure to grab a hold of him too. He goes to the brothel with no real plan of murdering Jose Luis, but really only cuts his face and is thus killed himself. Though we don’t know if he meant to cut his throat, I think what’s important is that he knew he would be wounded for his actions. Again, I feel as if they see a certain safety in being deceived, murdered or abandoned.

Me gusta el estilo de esta película. Pienso que es muy interesante ver las diferentes perspectivas cuando la historia empieza 2-3 tiempos. Es una película muy larga pero se pasa rápidamente. Hay muchos momentos divertidos, especialmente en el dialogo.

Me decepciona la fin de la película. Quiero mucho una vida con exito por Alma. Fue poco sorprendido con una cosa: estoy seguro que los dos amigos pueden trabajar en los Estados Unidos y ganar mucho dinero. Sin embargo, es probablemente la realidad. Muchas personas en México quieren viajar a los EEUU para trabajar, pero no es tan facil que piensan.

Y también, hay la probre Susana. Se caso con (no recuerdo su nombre… ¿Chava?), pero aprendemos que es solamente porque Chava quiere robarla.

Es una película de decepcion. En fin, las personas en la pelicula quieren dos cosas: el amor y el dinero. Pero ultimamente, el dinero es la cosa principal que las personas quieren.

I actually really liked this movie, despite its melodramatic points. I was pretty compelled the whole way through. Obviously there are aspects of it that I found less believable than others, ie when Susanita and the twenty- six year old guy get married. That part just seemed so middle aged woman dream coming true thing that doesn’t really happen very often in reality. I did like it when he responded “sure” in his sleazy way, though.
I was very impressed that this movie talked about homosexuality from the standpoint of an abusive middle aged married man. I also initially thought this movie was from the 80s, until I realized it was from 1995, but nonetheless, Mexican culture is very patriarchal and very Catholic, thus much less tolerant of homosexuality than, say, Canada, where gay marriage is legal and gay men have a much less difficult set of walls to tear down, metaphorically. This aspect of the movie made me respect it a lot more, and I also found the whole situation entirely believable. The use of drugs made this movie feel more real to me, as well.
I liked how hot and cold the father ran, not that it made me like the character for it, but I found him very realistic. Much of the time when asshole self-righteous characters are depicted in film, writers have a tendency to show them as very black and white, one-sided. But the fact that the father became so enraged when he felt betrayed and showed no vulnerability, but still simultaneously loved his grandson added more depth to his character.
There was a little bit of overacting, but it was a very dramatic movie, so somehow it fit, even though generally I can’t stand overacting. In terms of this movie as a cultural depiction, I enjoyed the view of the city street that we see interspersed through the film, I thought that was a good motif, because it showed how a street in Mexico actually looks. The fact that Alma felt like her only options of a future were prostitution or marrying rich felt very real and very tragic. I’m not sure if this film was as much a societal commentary, as much as it was about human relationships and the endurance of love.

I really liked this film. I thought it was different from all we have seen and really appreciated some of the aspects of it. The thing I liked the most is the use of time in this film, they always go back in time to show different people interacting in different manners yet it never feels repetitive because we learn something new from the point of view of someone else. Their play on time I thought was what made the film interesting, they give clues in each segment (for example in the Alma scene you can see Fidel son’s in the funeral and then they appear in the next segment as beggers) as to what is going to happen and then fill you in. Each character is interesting in their own way and I think they created characters that are actually believable.
As I am not supposed to use the word stereotype, I’ll use the words “stock characters in Mexican soap operas and film”. I think Mecanica Nacional used this as to create a satire, something that El Callejon de los milagros never did. We are presented to Don Ru as this patriarchal figure who is chauvinistic and homophobic (typical conservative latin parent) and then that image is torn apart when we learn he is actually a homosexual. The character of Alma is also seen as basically a gold digger interested in sex, but expanded to see that she actually did fall for Abel and gave up for her life for the life people thought she should have. This characters are compelling, they are interesting, something that Mecanica Nacional failed to give us. I think the most stock character is Susanita, an old single woman desperately looking for love. The funny thing is, I have met a lot of women like that in Peru, she played that type of woman to perfection. Her innocence is destroyed when Guicho stelas her money but again she does not act as we expect her to, she actually leaves him.
I actually think this is the film that represents class difference in Mexico the most effectively of the films we have seen. Los olvidados is a film that presents the problem of children in the streets turning into violence and lack of education failry well, yet it only gives us in detail that part of Mexico, the homeless. The rest of Mexico city is presented through the point of view of the children: oppresive, insignificant. Aguila O sol mocks the high and low class by showing their differences in the theater and in the characterization of Cantinflas character and his father, but never presents the problem as it really is. And Mecanica Nacional used the differences to accentuate humour. Yet this film actually presents the high class (Jose Luis) as oppresive, but also presents the idea of the US dream as being the high class. Abel actually leaves to become part of the American society to have money. What they are saying with this is that class boundaries are set in Mexico, and the only way you can get money if you are poor is by going to the US. This view is seen by thousands of people in Latin America, and to some extent it is true. Life is not a comedy like in Aguila O sol were from one day to another a poor person becomes rich, or were the poor and the rich interact in the same context like in Mecanica Nacional, the social and economic boundaries in third world countries are strict and this film respects it and never wants to satirize it, but call upon it as reflection.

We all know that the movie was divided into three sections, each one featuring a character. In this blog I want to point out that each of these characters ended up doing something different than what they originally set out for in the beginning. In the beginning of the first section, Rutilio acts like he’s homophobic by getting mad at Chava and Abel for hanging out too much (people might think they were gay), and then he finds a boyfriend and almost ends his relationship with his son, because his son is partly worried about his father’s and his own appearance and almost kills his father’s new boyfriend and has to run away to the US. At first Rutilio is trying to look out for his son, even though his criticism towards him makes him look cruel, and then he ends up losing him for awhile because of their argument.

In the second section, it really never seemed to me that Alma loved Abel as much as he loved her, but she promised him that she would wait for him and she didn’t. She started out as a clean virgin who was searching for a future, but when Abel moved away, she gave up on him almost right away and decided that her future would be prostitution, even though she ran away from it at first.

Susanita was a lonely landlord who was desperate enough for a family to give up rent money in order to have her cards read, but she ended up with a thief, who she got new teeth for (not a cheap procedure). She spent all of her money for men and to get men…she didn’t make Chava pay her back…and then because she realized that Guicho was stealing from her, she tried to end her dream of a family by finally putting herself first and yelling at him for it.

As an audience member, rather than a student who would be analysing it later, I found this movie kind of disturbing because I was rooting for the first two romances to work out (the first one is kind of questionable depending on your opinion, but whatever makes them happy is ok with me) and the first boyfriend almost got killed and with the second romance Alma became a prostitute and Abel got killed. With the third romance, I knew the guy was going to keep stealing from her, so I didn’t care that he got busted in the end. I’m not completely sure how the first two sections significantly blend into the third section, but it seems that if Chava and Rutilio hadn’t gotten into a fight, then Abel wouldn’t have moved away, and then Alma wouldn’t have become a prostitute…but then what would have happened with Susanita? Would she have gone after Chava? I’m not sure what happened there with them except that Chava gave her hope for a new man by kissing her. I guess now that I’ve finished typing this, I don’t think that the movie’s disturbing, but the characters are really pathetic. Only Abel really stands up for what he believes in and doesn’t give up until he’s dead.

Me gusta esta película mucho. En primer lugar, tiene una manera única del argumento. Al parecer lo que difiere con los 3 films pasados es que, tiene cuentos varios de una forma paralela, que cada cuento parece único que no tiene ninguna relación con otros cuentos directamente: el primero cuento es sobre Don Rutilio quien se enamora de un muchacho, y por eso su hijo Chava va a Estados Unidos; el segundo cuento es entre Alma y su amor Alber, el bueno amigo de Chava, y ellos se separan por la partida de Alber a Estados Unidos con Chava. Después de salir de Alber, Alma no puede casarse con un hombre viejo y rico por su muerte, y se hace una puta; el tercer cuento es acerca de Guicho, el empleado de Don Rutilio, y la dueño Susanita, y se casan tal vez porque Guicho necesita dineros – estos son tres cuentos principales que parecen distinctos, pero al fin, la última parte de la película nos da los finales de cada personaje. Por lo tanto, los argumentos son muy claro y con soltura.

En segundo lugar, el título es significado y metafórico. Es muy interesante que el título es traducido en dos maneras – “puta depravada” en Hong Kong y “el callejón del deseo/aspiración” o “la vida lamentable” en China. Yo pienso que la primera no es propia (sólo por intención comercial), pero ambos traducciones chinos son bien, pero la parabla “milagro” tiene más cosas:
Don Ru: tiene una familia corriente, pero desea un milagro de passión – muchacho Jaime;
Doña Cata: tiene la capacidad de advinar, pero desea un milagro de dinero – por enganar Susanita;
Susanita: tiene dinero, pero desea un milagro de amor – joven Guicho;
Chava y Guicho: tienen joventud y apariencia, pero desean un milagro de dinero;
Alma: tiene joventud y amor, pero desea un milagro de dinero también.
Pero por desgracia, los “milagros” no traen felicidad o buena suerte a los personajes al fin, sino traen la separación de hijos, el casamiento sin amor y la vida como una puta. Tal vez esto tipo de “milagro” es sólo una sátira – los personas desean muchos milagros, pero los milagros sólo son lamentos. Y tal vez los único personajes sin desgracia son Eusebia y la amiga de Alma, porque no tienen mucho deseos de “milagros”.

En tercer lugar, la elección de la lugar es específica y se centraliza. El callejón es como un escenario que es el único lugar que se pasa todos los cuentos allí. Además de esta película, Mecánica nacional tiene el mismo rasgo, que la mayoria de la trama y el cuento ocurren sólo en el lugar de fiesta. El callejón es pequeño, pero también grande, porque contiene casi todos los desgracias y lamentos en la clase baja.