Change Your Image
DennisRedmond
Reviews
Entre Marx y una mujer desnuda (1996)
Subtle, moving drama
***Spoiler alert: minor plot details follow.*** Though the story deals with political activists in Ecuador, a country riven by ferocious class polarization and savaged by IMF neoliberalism, this is a film which transcends partisan politics. Ultimately, this is a film about dreams: why they're born, what it takes to nourish them, and what is lost when they sometimes die. The screenplay follows a loose band of artistic and political dissidents, as they rebel against the rigid cultural and political orthodoxies of 1980s Ecuador, and try to invent a new kind of democracy in the face of looming military repression -- a democracy of roses as well as bread. We see a rich panorama of Ecuadoran society, ranging from the heart of the capital city to the rural Indian communities of the hinterlands. The crisp dialogue avoids preaching, while the images luxuriate in the storied legacy of Latin American magic realism (and, yes, Karl Marx gets a cameo!). If Subcommandante Marcos had been a film director, he would've created a film like this.