Copernicus amores AMAR A MORIR!

Mexico has produced some amazing films, actors, and directors over the last few years, and this year is no exception. I saw two great Mexican films over the last few days in Santa Barbara. By coincidence, both were trauma-fraught love stories, and both happened to feature rising star José María de Tavira. In short, AMAR A MORIR is a modern story of young forbidden love, and marks the directorial debut of a young man of considerable talent, Fernando Lebrija. The other film, TEAR THIS HEART OUT (Arráncame la vida) made the short list for Best Foreign Film in this year's Academy Awards. It is an epic story spanning the entire relationship between a middle-aged general in 1930s Mexico and the young girl and eventual woman he takes to be his wife. I'll review TEAR THIS HEAR OUT tomorrow (in short, it is great) -- today, here's my review of AMAR A MORIR. ---- In AMAR A MORIR, Alejandro Vizcaino (José María de Tavira), is young man whose spoiled, big-city life comes unmoored. He discovers that his fiancee is having bathroom sink sex with another man on the eve of their wedding. Understandably, he attempts to ease the trauma of this cock-holding cuckholding with a snootfull of blow, a few slugs of hooch, and some high speed automobile shenanegans. Now the poor bastard is doomed -- he has run afoul of The Law of Cinematic Coke Use: tragedy and incarceration are the only possible outcomes (well, death is technically also acceptable, but let's not get ahead of ourselves, this is only the first act). Meanwhile, Alejandro's wealthy, controlling father is less than excited about having to dispense a monster bribe to spring his son from the slammer, and commands him to go through with the marriage to his filthy fiancee. Alejandro flees the whole mess, crashes his car (again), and by chance ends up in a beach town where megababe Rosa (Martina García) fatefully awaits. To recap: hoochie, hooch, horror, hooscow, hightail, hola! But things are more complicated than they would at first seem -- Rosa has some secrets of her own. In the meantime, Alejandro befriends a mute beggar, the proprietor of a hammock, an Australian surfer, and manages to run afoul of the local drug lord. Why should we care about this rich fuck-up? Did I mention that he's a handsome devil? José María de Tavira approaches Pitt-like levels of statuesque perfection, and he could charm the fur off a monkey. But more than that, he's a real actor, with a particular knack for delivering pathos by the simmering faceful. (Meanwhile Martina García delivers lust by the mercifully liberated from her bikini breastful. Thank you Mexican directors!) José María de Tavira has range that reaches well beyond this film -- in TEAR THIS HEART OUT he plays a handsome devil of a different stripe -- a bearded, communist hottie, if you can believe that. Director and cowriter Fernando Lebrija appears equally adept at both roles. The writing is outstanding -- a movie like this can be formulaic, and while I generally had a sense of where the film was headed, I was often surprised. Where most writers would have been content with simple scenes communicating a point necessary to the plot, he continues with an idea, building and building until the tension and drama reach the breaking point. Then he folds the idea back into the plot later for dramatic and symbolic effect. A car crash becomes not just a plot device, but a symbol, one that is echoed farther into the script, and just just once. He actually does this in such a subtle way, that I just realized this about car crashes as I wrote the words. The direction is equally remarkable -- you'd never know this was Lebrija's first film. The camera is always in motion, used to greatest effect in some dazzling surfing scenes, sometimes shot moving with the surfers, and sometimes from under water. The film's color palate also reflects the dramatic tone, from the dark restraint of the city to the seaside color explosion. The filmmakers also manage to communicate a sense of the Michoacan region, both through the photography of the physical setting and the portraits of the characters who inhabit it -- surfers, shopkeepers, overlords, beggars, generals, and lovers. Everything here is writ large, but it is hard to hold that against the film. It simply amplifies every facet, from the characters to my favorite theme in movies, the fleeting magic of the best things in life, and their all too tragic rarity. Copernicus