Like Water for Chocolate (film)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- This is an article about the 1992 film. For article about the novel, see Like Water for Chocolate. For the Common album of the same name, see Like Water for Chocolate (album).
| Like Water for Chocolate | |
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| Directed by | Alfonso Arau |
| Produced by | Alfonso Arau |
| Written by | Laura Esquivel |
| Starring | Marco Leonardi Lumi Cavazos Regina Torné Mario Iván Martínez |
| Release date(s) | 16 April 1992 |
| Running time | 123 min |
| Country |  Mexico |
| Language | Spanish/English |
| IMDb profile | |
Like Water for Chocolate is a 1992 film based on the popular novel, published in 1989 by first-time Mexican novelist Laura Esquivel.[1] It earned all 11 Ariel awards of the Mexican Academy of Motion Pictures, including the Ariel Award for Best Picture, and became the highest grossing foreign film ever released in the United States at the time.
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[edit] Plot of the film
Like Water For Chocolate is a love story that takes place in Mexico. The main character Tita faces several obstacles in obtaining her true love. The first obstacle she faces is her mother, Mama Elena. It was a tradition in her mother’s family that the youngest girl child should not marry in order to take care of the mother.
Yet Tita, the youngest, falls in love with Pedro at a young age; Mama Elena is not happy by this at all. When Pedro and his father come to ask if Pedro can have Tita’s hand in marriage, Mama Elena refuses and offers Rosaura’s hand instead because she is the eldest child. Her second obstacle in being happily in love with Pedro is that he agrees to marry Rosaura because he loves Tita so much that he is willing to marry her sister in order to be closer to her. Even after Pedro accepts Rosaura, Mama Elena keeps a close watch on the two of them. When Tita is asked to make the wedding cake, she becomes intensely sad, and when the guests at the wedding eat the cake, her grief is translated to them through it. The wedding, then, becomes sad for more than just the lonely Tita, and Tita's cooking continues to transfer her feelings to those who eat it throughout the rest of the film.
One night Mama Elena overhears Pedro and Tita, and the next day Elena sends Rosaura, Pedro and their baby boy to Texas to live with family. Tita is angry with her mother but continues to help take care of her parents. Soon, they receive news that the baby has died on the way to Texas and this news leads Tita to have a nervous breakdown of sorts. Her mother says if Tita wants to act crazy, then she will send her to live in an asylum. The doctor comes and takes Tita back to his home to care for her.
Another obstacle to Tita and Pedro's love arises when, after a little while, the doctor asks Tita to marry him. Even though her mother is still alive, Tita agrees and vows never to return home to her mother ever again. Her mother dies soon afterward, and she returns home to the funeral. After the funeral she discovers that her mother also had a secret lover who was the father of her second child, Gertrudis.
Rosaura and Pedro return for the funeral as well, which causes sexual tension between Tita and Pedro. Rosaura soon gives birth to a second child, a girl, and is told that she will never be able to have another child. Rosaura declares that her daughter Esperanza will never marry because she, like Tita, will have to take care of her mother.
The doctor is called away and Tita and Pedro find their way to each other. Tita fears that she might be pregnant. After this her mother seems to appear to her telling her that both she and her child will be cursed. Tita finally stands up to her mother’s spirit, sending her away, but her mother makes a final lash out at Pedro by causing him to be severely burned.
Tita nurses him back to health until the Doctor returns. After his return, Tita tells the doctor that she can not marry him because she gave her virginity to another. The doctor vows that it does not matter to him because he loves her and still wants to marry her, but will respect her wishes if she does not still feel the same way about him.
Tita continues to live with Rosaura, Pedro, and their daughter Esperanza. She continues to cook and help with the housework. Tita and Rosaura fight about Esperanza and the idea of her getting married. Rosaura dies while Esperanza is in her late teens.
The end shows Esperanza marrying the doctor’s son. At the wedding reception, Pedro confesses to Tita that he still loves her, wants to marry her and has dreamed of their wedding day. He does not care what other people will say. The movie ends with Tita and Pedro finally being together truly, completely and very passionately. Yet after experiencing just one moment of the greatest love and joy that Tita has ever known, it is taken away from her. Pedro dies while making love to her. Tita then sets fire to the house and kills herself. Esperanza returns to the now destroyed ranch to find only Tita’s cookbook, which held her amazing recipes and told of her and Pedro’s love story.
[edit] Characters
- Marco Leonardi as Pedro Muzquiz
- Lumi Cavazos as Tita
- Regina Torné as Mamá Elena
- Mario Iván Martínez as Doctor John Brown
- Ada Carrasco Nacha as Nacha
- Yareli Arizmendi as Rosaura
- Claudette Maillé as Gertrudis
- Pilar Aranda as Chencha
- Farnesio de Bernal as Cura
- Joaquín Garrido as Sargento Treviño
- Rodolfo Arias as Juan Alejándrez
- Margarita Isabel as Paquita Lobo
- Sandra Arau as Esperanza Muzquiz
- Andrés García Jr as Alex Brown
- Regino Herrera as Nicolás
- Genaro Aguirre as Rosalio
- David Ostrosky as Juan de la Garza
- Brígida Alexander as Tía Mary
- Amado Ramírez as Padre de Pedro
- Arcelia Ramírez as Bisnieta
- Socorro Rodríguez as Amiga de Paquita
- Rafael García Zuazua as Padrino
- Rafael García Zuazua Jr as Alex de niño
- Edurne Ballesteros as Tita de adolescente
- Melisa Mares as Rosaura de niña
- Gabriela Canudas as Rosaura de adolescente
- Natalia De la Fuente as Gertrudis de niña
- Beatriz Elías as Gertrudis de adolescente
[edit] Double meaning of title
The phrase "like water for chocolate" comes from the Spanish "como agua para chocolate". This phrase is a common expression in Spanish speaking countries and was the inspiration for Laura Esquivel's novel title (the name has a double-meaning). In some Latin American countries, such as Mexico, hot chocolate is made not with milk, but with water instead. Water is boiled and chunks of milk chocolate are dropped in to melt thus creating the hot chocolate. The saying "like water for chocolate," alludes to this fact and also to the common use of the expression as a metaphor for describing a state of passion or -sometimes- sexual arousal. In some parts of Latin America, the saying is also equivalent to being "boiling mad" in anger.[2]
[edit] Awards
- The film won the Ariel Award for best picture.
- Margarita Isabel won the Ariel Award for Best Actress in a Minor Role for her performance in this film.
[edit] See also
In an episode of the hit UPN Sitcom, moesha, the character Hakeem mentions that this is his favourite film.
