i missed practically the first part of this film... anyone care to tell me what happened? :) lol i saw from where yessica was cleaning her legs in the toilets and asked miriam is she smells funny.
i gathered some info and kinda guessed what happens but i doubt id find it is a video store
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my heart is bursting in your perfect eyes
At the start of the film, the girl moved to a new school after being a problem at her last school, she quickly made friends with a student sat in front of her in class and they quickly developed a strange but close friendship, she then got raped by her stepbrother and his friend, i think thats all you missed.Maybe its just me but i dont quite understand the ending, it was a bit weird.
shareThe ending is supercool, really, it is one of the best endings ive seen. including films of hitchcock, kubrick, carpenter, buñuel...
!!!!!SPOILERS AHEAD!!!!
Do you remember yessica's smile in the ending. why? i will tell you what i think:
Alicia showed his love to the body she though was her daughter, she lean on Yessica's body, and yessica smiled. why? maybe coz it was the first time in a while she fell true love, although it was given by mistake. Yessica envys Miriams life, the love of her mother, their house. Why do you think Yessica was laying in Miriams bed? do you remember the first time Yessica went to Miriams house? what did she do? why? coz that was a bit of a life better than hers, i think. That was the moment when she began to feel envy for Miriams life, thats why she spend all the afternoons in Miriams house, thas why yessica loved Miriam, coz Miriam was yessica's escape of reality. and what happens when Miriams became angry with her? that escape of reality was lost. and what happens in she accidentally kills Miriam? that escape from his miserable life was lost forever, thats why she stayed in Miriams house until night; she was trying to grab that alternative reality she just lost.
!!!!!NO MORE SPOILERS!!!!
I spect all your comments about the ending
Gracias a dios todavia soy ateo. Luis Buñuel
I completly agree. This scene in the movie is truely heart breaking but it's the done is a wonderful way. I definitely agree that Yessica envied Miriam's life. Miriam lived pretty much in her own little happy world while Yessica was submitted to horrible situations at home. Her parents didn't really care about her at all. Her mother was too busy building a new life with her new husband and Yessica was simply getting in the way. The step brother honestly made me want to vomit. My interpretation of the movie was that this wasn't the first time she had been raped by him or his friends. Does anyone else agree? BTW, if you like his acting, you have to see "Amarte Duele"...he's great in that one too. I also agree about Miriam's death. Miriam was Yessica's escape from her own life and when that had the potential to be taken away Yessica snapped. It was really tragic but I think the movie did a good job of portraying some of the problems kids have in Mexico City and in other countries too. I saw this movie almost 2 years ago and it still really has an impact on me to this day.
shareThis was my first ever latin american film that i watched. I was totally taken my surprise and i've been addicted to them ever since. I was/am fascinated with the way they depict women in this film.
The single mother, who has worked all her life and her way to the top is through her boss at work her sexually abuses her (maybe this wasn't how many people saw it, maybe she really liked the guy but in my eyes it was her way to keep her job and get to the top, which makes her just as bad as Yessica seems to be in her eyes). Also the narrow mindedness that she has which keeps in towe with the machismo that is portrayed by the men in the film.
The family mother who has to hide the money from her husband, who is presumably an alcoholic? and the way that the son is first priority and the woman must stay in the home, this was shocking for me as i have always grown up in a society in which the women's education is as important as the man's.
the attitude of the school, where yessica is punished for fighting and the boy isn't, again the way that women seem to promote machismo. and of course the disgust when they think that yessica has started her period, the complete contrast to the attitude in britain, i went to a boarding school, and of course things like that happen and it is taken with mild embarrassment, or even joy when a girl first starts, and the teachers are gentle and understanding.
The only child, miriam who is protected with fierce ferocity from the outside world and her naivety to her surroundings, although she does learn a lot from yessica.
and of course yessica, who yes was jealous of miriam and her fascination with clean smells that she loves so much. but her surprising quietness about her rape shows how oppressed she seems to feel in life, which is also shown through her wetting the bed.
I was intrigued about this portrayal of women in mexico, and read a lot more about some of these things on www.mujereshoy.com, which helped me to gain an A and high grades on my course for my research, i owe a lot to this film.
although the symbolism is not very subtle, for example the bubbles in the bath tub where miriam tries to share her life or "bubble" with yessica and it pops. but nevertheless this was a film that opened my eyes up to symbols and metaphors in films in general.
This might not be everyone's cup of tea, indeed many people might find it trashy, and others could be disappointed, but as you all know everyone is different.
Someone here mentioned a BIG mistake, her step-brother didn't rape her, her step-brother's friend did.
sharewell, he gets money for allowing that. So i think he's part of the crime.
shareIndeed he is part of the crime. But he doesn't rape her. He "pimps" her. Against her will of course, but that is his intention. He even offers her money for it. The brother is just trying to make a living. There is no good and evil in this movie. Not even in Miriam. She is not "good" she is naive. And she pays the price for it. Maybe the bus driver and some of the teachers. But they are not even secondary characters, and there are good arguments to support the "neutrality" of their nature (human nature in the end).
The movie is absolutely theatrical. In fact, the actress playing Jessica was casted from a local theater group (I also think Nancy was casted the same way, but I'm not sure). Besides the actors themselves, and the director, the movie has "breaks" and "fade-outs". Brakes are radical subject changes (sometimes even sudden scene change) that are intended to prevent the watcher from reaching empathy with any of the characters. And well, "fade-outs" are the movie equivalent to theater "black-outs" in between acts.
About the ending, it is a clear example of a "brake". The telephone ringing, the calm anxiousness of Miriam's mother, the fact that the audience knows that Jessica is inside the house, all this details make a perfect moment for a watcher to empathize with a character (in this case, Miriam's mother or Jessica). But the sudden ending before a showdown between the characters "brakes" the feeling of the moment. This technique is used in epic theater (Brecht's theater) to force the watcher to think about what he just saw.
I second what most people have said about their interpretation of the end. Jessica is enjoying the moment, feeling what she has just destroyed. But what next?. Jessica escapes?? Jessica kills Miriam's mother in a spree??. Escaping to a reality she can not escape trough Miriam again, will just only make her more miserable, maybe drowning her in the prostitution hinted by her step-brother. If she kills Miriam's mother, even accidentaly again, she will most likely end in jail.
Who would belive her side of the story? Who would help her? Again, nobody is listening.
Wow...I really like the last point you made about no one listening. I never thought of it like that, but it's continuing with the theme of Yessica being ignored....or even the larger theme of sexual abuse being ignored.
I thought the brakes in the film (didn't know what they were called until now) were very well done. I never could quite but my finger on it, but I never really had an opinion about the characters in the movie one way or another. In most movies, you root for one character or another and you clearly don't want the bad guy to win. In this movie, those lines are blurred.
I really enjoyed this movie but the ending. I don't disagree with the comments you made, which by the way I find very interesting and accurate, however the ending really dissapointed me because it is very common in Mexican movies. It is there in el castillo de la pureza, canoa, Danzon and many other movies. So it is not the ending per se I didn't like but that it is very common in Mexican cinema.
[blue]]I live in a world of words that create a world of things JM Coetzee[/blue
I'm under the impression that many people here thinks all latin american kids have this life which is not true, but indeed this kind of suffering is common in the poorest neighborhoods. Mexican movies are always into showing it to the rest of the world.
Her death will be a mystery even to me
I agree in not seeing the movie as good an evil, but still I can't agree with "his stepbrother is just trying to make a living". The brother consciously chooses this path, you can see it the first time he climbs the bus after the friend has raped her. He realizes what just really happened, but he chooses no to care. I don't know if he is evil, but he does a lot of damage to his stepsister.
What I like about this movie is that it portrays very well the reality of poor people in Mexico City. I don't think the use of the music is fortituos, or that it's just used in order to sell the soundtrack. To me it really transports you to a reality, I live in Mexico City myself, and that music brings feelings and pictures in my mind that can't really be described unless you live here for a long time. The scenarios are great, both of the girls houses are truly believable, the colors, the objects, everything, exactly like a low income house in Mexico.
I just hope that with so much movies like this that talk about some realities of Mexico people don't think that's the case of ALL of Mexico.
I realise this thread is ancient, but... the step-brother wasn't pimping Jessica to buy bread for his starving children, he was literally selling her for a pair of luxury sneakers. He and his friend are unambiguously and indisputably evil, the step-brother wasn't just trying to make a living as he had a roof over his head and food on the table with the parents.
shareIm just at the begining of the movie right now, just started, ill leave my thoughts later on after its done (:
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