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NOT all
films about goodness are good and, certainly, not all
films about hope are films we hope to see. This film,
Bella, is one exception. The film is the first
feature for its young director, Alejandro Gomez
Monteverde, and ushers in once more a name to reckon
with from the Latin world. What is it in that
geography—Argentina, Colombia, Mexico, to cite examples
in America, and Spain in Europe—that urges and enables
its film artists to come up with works that are either
outstanding because they are very complex, or riveting
because they are very simple? Like this film Bella.
Bereft of the opulent imagination of the hallucinatory
kind and without those sordid images that make us sit up
and ponder on human realities, the film takes on a huge
theme like destiny.
The
director and the writers (Monteverde working with
Patrick Million, an acclaimed finalist in the Sundance
Screenwriting Labs) relate the story of a man on the
verge of success who, for some reason, meets an accident
that does not hurt him physically but forces him to make
a detour. The man is Jose and he is with his
friend/manager Francisco. They are on their way to
signing the contract that is expected to bring him to
the professional world of soccer. It is an ordinary day
but the gods of the universe seem to be humming to
themselves, looking down and pondering what trick with
Fate they can bring on to some people.
DATE WITH DESTINY.
Eduardo
Verástegui as Jose in Bella, on the road unwittingly
toward a life-altering experience.
Two
disparate events are playing onscreen: one is a mother
playing with her lovely daughter. She is recording on a
videocam her daughter playing and talking with her. It
is a beautiful but ordinary scene. The other event is
more crucial: two friends can taste in their mouth
already the possibilities that come with being a sports
celebrity. The experience is heady and the air is
pungent of the many things that can happen—and those
that may not happen.
Then the
accident happens. No one wills accident. No one wants
it. In some instances, the occurrence is so unusual that
it merits the description “freak.” Jose does not run
away from it. Distraught, he stays and faces the
mother—and goes to prison for it.
By the
time we see Jose, he has changed. He is a bearded man,
always in deep thought. There is actually a difficulty
making the connection between the almost arrogant person
we see first before the accident and this almost
biblical character with a duplicitous serenity and
anxiety all about him. If there is one complaint I have
about the film, it is this transition or juncture. One
feels a gap between the person shown at the beginning of
the film and this man broken and looking good at the
same time. But then again, the fact that the film does
work even with these crutches speaks of how well the
piece has been crafted to engage the heart of the
audience.
Another
person enters the scene: Nina, an American woman dressed
in colorful Mexican costume, is again late for her job
in the restaurant. Manny, Jose’s brother, decides to
fire her and, for some reason, the broken man follows
her. Jose leaves his job and his brother frantically
calls home to tell their mother what has happened.
Jose and
Nina travel together to Jose’s home and Nina meets the
parents of the man who just fired her and the man who
also now is her potential guardian. We learn about Nina
being pregnant and her decision to abort the baby. A
series of flash-forwards is shown engaging us in the
dilemma of Nina. This, in my book, is again one of the
crutches of the film. It dangerously tugs the film away
from its power, which comes from its silent discourse on
fate and goodness in a person’s heart.
There is
one more weakness of the film: Mexico and being Mexican,
or Latin, is bandied as a passport to some kind of
cultural authenticity. Fine, but such authenticity does
not really lead to emotional authenticity. One is about
the group and their perception of themselves and the
other is about individual responses. One gets this
feeling of witnessing a tourist presentation of the
Mexican/Latin Americana world where fathers look like
Anthony Quinn acting out the role of a padre de
familia and where mothers opt for shawls as a
fashion statement, black shawls specifically for
gravitas of a mater dolorosa.
What
comes out in this othering of the Mexican families is a
subtle dig at the North American family and their
dysfunctions, which may be altogether ethnocentric and
unfair to both sides. Nina talks about a father who dies
when she was young and a mother who stopped functioning
as a mother early on. This contrast goes on. Nina has
not seen her family or any relative for that matter for
some four odd years. Jose, in comparison, can travel
back to his home any time even when he has just had a
misunderstanding with his brother. The dearth of kinship
on the side of Nina is an oversupply of relations on
that of Jose.
Out of
those questions and away from the storyline, I look back
at the engaging quality of Bella. There are many
answers. One is that the movie merely tells the story,
plodding sometimes and picking up speed and soaring
along the way. It has a particular rhythm that makes
credible the timeline: the falling from grace, the
valley and the plateau in a man’s life, the attempt to
move on, the picking up of the pieces. All of the phases
are stereotypical but in Monteverde’s hands, they become
cogent and convincing little episodes. It is the
narrator more than the tale this time, and it works.
Bella
won the People’s Choice Award, one of the top prizes in
the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival. Press
releases talk about the long standing ovation Bella
merited at the festival. Credit for this award and
ovation should go to the main actors. As Nina, Tammy
Blanchard is a discovery for the film. On TV Blanchard
has already won an Emmy for her portrayal of the
much-lauded Life with Judy Garland: Me and My
Shadows. Eduardo Verástegui is an odd choice for the
role of Jose. Articles exploit the reel and real
parallelism between his character in the film and his
exploits as a Calvin Klein underwear model and Spanish
telenovela heartthrob. Some groups have gone on to talk
about his being born again and advocacies were raised
around the responsible parenthood stand the film is
supposed to make.
This is
a strange development around the film. Bella, as
a movie, does make intriguing takeoff points for
discussion. This situation, however, is brought about
not by a narrative that demands consciousness-raising,
but by a film that is able to relay to us a tale often
told in vulgar didactic ways. The film is cautionary
without making use of the pulpit. I like it that way.
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