I had to watch this for my college Spanish class, and although I usually enjoy class movies, I could have gone without this one. It goes on for WAY too long, plus it is downright bizarre. It's not that I don't "get" it. I get it all right, but I don't like it. I simply can't handle magical fairy tale mush like this. The movie is clearly aimed at an entirely different audience than me.
Here's the rundown: a girl can't marry the person she loves, so she expresses her emotions through her cooking. This leads to one of the most ridiculous things I have ever seen, in which her sister gets so horned up by the erotic food that she runs into a shower, tears her clothes off, sets the shower on fire, runs down the road, and jumps into the lap of a horse-mounted general (this takes place during the Mexican Revolution, although the movie barely takes notice of it).
Besides the nutty plot developments, we have to deal with totally clichéd, unrealistic characters (WHY is the mother so evil? Why???), and stuff that just makes no sense whatsoever (you're telling me that for generations, this family has never allowed the youngest daughter to marry, and this is the FIRST girl to question that? Did these previous girls even know men existed!?). Oh, and did I mention the movie is very hard to watch? It is filmed in a rather sickening Turd Brown that had me cringing. It looks like there's rust on the camera lens or something. Very unpleasant.
Good movie for the erotic/mystical/magical/romance crowd, but I didn't get anything out of it.
5/10 stars.
