Así es la vida (2000)

Director:

Arturo Ripstein

Writer:

Paz Alicia Garciadiego (writer)

Release Date:

12 January 2001 (Spain)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

Based on the Greek tragedy MEDEA, this is a present day Mexican version, set in the seediest possible milieu of Mexico City...

Plot Keywords:

Mexico | Infanticide | Domestic Violence | Betrayal | Murder

Awards:

3 wins

Cast

Arcelia Ramírez	...	Julia
Patricia Reyes Spíndola	...	Adela, The Godmother
Luis Felipe Tovar	...	Nicolás
Ernesto Yáñez	...	La Marrana
Alejandra Montoya	...	Teenager
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Marta Aura		(as Martha Aura)
Daniela Carvajal
Constanza Cavalli
Beto Alonso Gil
Francesca Guillén	...	Raquel
Osami Kawano
Loló Navarro
Andrés Weiss
Marco Zapata

Also Known As:

Así es la vida (Spain)
C'est la vie... (France) (TV title)
Such Is Life (International: English title)

Runtime:

Germany:98 min

Country:

Mexico | France | Spain

Language:

Spanish

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby SR

Certification:

Australia:MA | Singapore:R(A) | Hong Kong:III | Spain:18

Movie Connections:

Version of "Play of the Week: Medea (#1.1)" (1959)

Ripstein is running out of ideas

I was so enthusiastic for this film... before seeing it. "Así es la vida" is the first latin american commercially released film shot on digital video (Pal system, of course) and, beyond that technical achievement, it´s of little interest. The movie shows (and, as usual in Ripstein, into a sordid scenario) a woman complaining and punishing herself because her husband left her and went away with another (younger) woman. When the man comes back for taking the kids with him, then she will decide how to take revenge...

I think the question here is: how long, as a viewer, can you stand a woman complaining without anything actually happening? Certainly there is no dramatic progression -perhaps the film would have worked better if the story showed this couple from the beginning of the relationship so we could follow their degradation- and the characters are so cliché... it´s obvious Ripstein here is using the sordid elements not to reveal the depths of his characters but simply to shock us gratuitously. As always the dialogs are soup-opera kind, but here they just don´t work and seem a little pretentious. Visually, the film lacks appeal. The director uses long one-shot takes that give the movie a monotonous feeling. Anyway, I must say that the election of the DV -with all its imperfections- as format helps a lot to build the atmosphere and the decoration is just brilliant.

Some OKs, like using the tv and the musical group to show the feelings of the characters, a very funny take (above all, the film has a certain black humor that I appreciate) where we see the very same Ripstein through a mirror, don´t save this picture. By the way, it feels like he has seen Von Trier´s "Breaking the waves" a lot... If you have seen Ripstein´s best "Principio y Fin" then you have already seen "Así es la vida". Hmmm.