Ulises is a man living in a slum and Elvira is settled in a better off neighbor. It would be unlikely for them to meet, but the miracle happens and they share their losses and try to reconstruct their lives as individuals and together.
One of the best recent attempts to reflect Mexican everyday life that deserves a better fate than the one it has had. The film is SUPERB and the b/w photography is marvelous, adding to the ambiance that the director proposes and successfully achieves. Add to this the experience of the veteran thespians Arcelia Ramirez and Gustavo Sánchez Parra -who did not charge for their performances- and you have a magical piece of cinematographic reality.
It is a stereotype and a common place in Mexican cinema that proletarian life must be portrayed in a somber and sinister manner, but that does not happen here. Indeed, there is some elegiac poetry in what we see, that is the raw existence for most of us Mexicans.
The film moves the audience in just 75 minutes and shows us one of the less fortunate boroughs of the city as well as the landfill called Bordo del Xochiaca, which becomes another character in the end of the film.
Not to be missed, indeed. Another face far away from the "folklorical" approach given to Mexico overseas.
One of the best recent attempts to reflect Mexican everyday life that deserves a better fate than the one it has had. The film is SUPERB and the b/w photography is marvelous, adding to the ambiance that the director proposes and successfully achieves. Add to this the experience of the veteran thespians Arcelia Ramirez and Gustavo Sánchez Parra -who did not charge for their performances- and you have a magical piece of cinematographic reality.
It is a stereotype and a common place in Mexican cinema that proletarian life must be portrayed in a somber and sinister manner, but that does not happen here. Indeed, there is some elegiac poetry in what we see, that is the raw existence for most of us Mexicans.
The film moves the audience in just 75 minutes and shows us one of the less fortunate boroughs of the city as well as the landfill called Bordo del Xochiaca, which becomes another character in the end of the film.
Not to be missed, indeed. Another face far away from the "folklorical" approach given to Mexico overseas.
