Guie'dani's Navel (2018) User Reviews

Masterpiece with imperfections

[panta-4 · 9/10 · 21 February 2021]

Oaxaca, that magical place... Zapotec people, out of this world... then someone like Xavi Sala decides to make a story about two different worlds in the same country, far from the land of their own...

Any words to describe this would be insufficient! Multilayered slowly told story, directing which leads you step by step to revelation left unspoken, incredible acting of Sótera Cruz as Guie'dani and Érika López as her mother Lidia - are something I will remember for a long time!

Nothing is perfect, and there are some unrealistic parts of the screenplay which were added for unknown reasons to me - they just watered down the messages this amazing film delivered - so I need to point those imperfections - but on the other hand those could be perceptions our main characters felt regardless on what happened!

Heavy and melodramatic but still longing for deeper meaning - I would suggest that everyone opens their minds and watch this masterpiece from Mexico!

Great movie, original

[juancarloshg-33536 · 10/10 · 3 April 2021]

You have to be open minded to understand this movie, this is not like any other movie since it touches the deep differences among the people of Mexico, especially Mexico City, you can even say that this movie shows the discrete racism that permeates in Mexico's society, the girl is trying to fight that stereotype that maids have to endure when they go to work in housolds of mestizos or white Mexican population, the end it's excellent, it leaves you thinking. Remember, no one is happy when one is discriminated.

A totally pointless film

[qui_j · 2/10 · 19 March 2021]

One has to wonder why films like this are made, and more importantly, why streaming sites actually stream them! This film does little to explain the motivation for the lead character's behavior, and requires even less in the way of a script or dialog. It only asks that she be able to stare at objects for extended periods of time without blinking, and walk around with a wooden expression, saying nothing. It is the usual tale of the "haves and have-nots" in Mexico where class and societal differences are large! It could have been so much better if more work had gone into a more thoughtful script and not had the lead actress use her talents as if she were an "extra" on The Walking Dead! No attempt was made to explain the motivation behind her behavior, choices or actions.....and that's a huge fail! It would have made the difference between a thoughtful, meaningful film....and a meaningless, pointless movie!

The "Bad Seed" from Oaxaca

[EdgarST · 5/10 · 12 March 2020]

Promoting the film as the "opposite extreme" of Alfonso Cuarón's "Roma" is neither profit nor loss. Both simply tell stories about domestic workers in Mexico City and include moments when the servant becomes "Supermaid", which does not imply any change in the worker-employer relations. However, it is good to recognize that Xavi Sala tells the story from the point of view of a Oaxacan servant and her 12-year old daughter, while Cuarón's is the opposite, as compassionate and democratic as the filmmaker appears or wants to be.

The most serious problems of Xquipi 'Guie'dani have to do with the level of credibility of the script, with its tone, with the performances and the direction, to begin with. There are moments in the film that seem to be taken from bad soap operas, such as the scene in which the four members of the upper-middle class family watch television together and discusse negative issues about the maid and her daughter (I think bosses do not spend as much time on their problems with the maids: they simply fire them) or the moment Guie'dani breaks a piece of crockery and it is the father who reacts in a way that is decidedly incoherent with his social class, as if he were a slaver who only lacks a whip.

The tone is stale melodrama, but the characters lack a healthy sense of humor, and if they laugh it to make fun of each side. The performers range from one-note performances to very bad acting: in this field, Juan Ríos (as the father) and Yuriria del Valle (as the mother) are the worst players. Xavi Sala's direction neither removes nor puts, but I think that, in some way, his condition as foreigner, which could have been a blessing (as Antonioni was to "Blowup", Schlesinger to "Midnight Cowboy" or Herzog to "Stroszek"), is more detrimental to his work, evident in the times when we feel that he is using formulaic solutions from old-fashioned melodrama, instead of using a slightly more anthropological approach to the facts.

In conclusion little Guie'dani only remains as a resentful Oaxacan, with a touch of evil from which we know or are told nothing (not even in the melodramatic style of the final scene of "Psycho"), which ends up agreeing with the journalist who called the movie "the nightmare of the employers of Mexico".