"Love in Chocolate" is based on the first novel by Mexican female writer Laura Esquivel. Laura Esquivel completed the creation of the screenplay and handed it over to her husband director Alfonso Yarrow to complete.
"Love in Chocolate" brings García Márquez's magical realism into the kitchen and bedroom-a traditional refuge and prison for Latin American women.
No model can be applied to analyze this video. Only by understanding how "magic realism" can be rooted in the magical land of Latin America can we have a deeper understanding of how the film contains the profound ideas in the seemingly absurd "magic reality" shell, which is implicit in the casual wanderings. The role of social criticism.
According to the introduction of literary researchers, the term "magic realism" was first produced in Western Europe and was introduced to Latin America in 1948. The term "magic realism" did not develop into a literary or artistic genre in Europe, but when it entered Latin America, there were already prototype works of magic realism. Once the term was introduced, it quickly developed into the world today. A literary school with great influence in the literary world. This is of course inseparable from the natural conditions, political conditions, Indian and foreign cultures, traditional and non-traditional, ancient and modern thought influences in Latin America. Latin American "Magic Realism" was inspired by Western European Surrealism, but it opposed the creative tendency of escaping from reality. Although they accepted the surrealist aesthetic principle, that is, "the magical things are beautiful, all magical things are beautiful, and only magical things are beautiful" (Breton). But magical realism pursues the magic in reality, and it also pays attention to reflecting reality, which is a kind of "magic reality."
Alfonso Aro tried to maintain his literary characteristics. Through Quinta's voice-over, he told the stories of his aunt Tita and great-grandmother generations. This can be said to be the epitome of the fate of women in Mexico and even the entire Latin American continent. Quinta talks about daily trivia, such as "chopping onions" and "weaving long carpets", the most common and common things, but they are closely linked to the fate of the character, the character's emotional experience, and the joy, anger, sorrow, and joy. How does "magic" relate to "reality"? Through Quinta's language, the editor has brought into play the possibilities of literature to give readers a richer imagination, vividly showing Dita's tragic fate and persistent pursuit of love. "The kitchen" is one of the most important scenes in this film, and it is also an important living space for every Mexican woman. Cutting onions is the most frequent job here. The spicy smell of onions in the kitchen makes people cry. These tears dripped onto the ground and were evaporated by the sun into salt particles. These salt particles were as much as 40 pounds when they were swept away!
This beginning vividly embodies the bitter fate of traditional Latin American women being enclosed in the kitchen, unable to realize their own value and embodying subjective initiative, and undoubtedly has social critical significance. Similarly, Irina’s "ghost" appeared in the film many times, but also to vividly reveal the shackles of the old traditional concepts on people, the reality that "the dead rule the living".
Movies are not literature after all. In this film, the director made a lot of efforts to transplant the literary genre of magic realism into the film form. "Magic reality" is shown to the audience one by one, sometimes showing phenomena, real picture reality (such as the vomiting of guests at Lu Sara's wedding reception); sometimes it is full of fantasy visual scenes (such as Sophie's departure) Sometimes full of sad romantic sentiments (for example, when Tita was sent to a mental hospital, she dragged a 100-meter long blanket behind the carriage), these magical realities are aimed at portraying characters, revealing the psychological process of people, and achieving mental state Catharsis in a state of extreme and excitement. Director Alfonso Yarrow pays great attention to the creation of the atmosphere of the scene under different psychological conditions, exerting the emotional appeal of light and color elements, so that the audience is not watching a magical story, but experiencing an emotional experience with the protagonist Dita. To be sure, if it is not for the many expressions of the film, the film will not be able to achieve good results.
The excellent performances of Lumi Gahuazo and Regina Toni make the contradictory relationship between Tita and Irina appear rich and complex. The playwright has a clear setting on the relationship between the characters. Since they are mothers and daughters, according to family regulations, the first daughters must not marry but must accompany their mothers for the rest of their lives. The particularity and cruelty of the relationship between the characters unfolded from this. Tita could not marry his beloved Pietro, but also forced to make a cake for Pietro and his sister's wedding banquet. The film spends a lot of space to show this loveless flesh-and-blood relationship and loveless marriage relationship, to reveal human emotional pain and conflicts, and its practical significance and critical role are also self-evident. In the film, the "ghost" of the mother Irina appeared many times, and did not adopt the usual horror and exaggerated abomination, but just like when she was alive, this treatment method also emphasizes the meaning of reality.
In the film, Pietro cannot break through the old tradition and combine with his beloved Tita, but adopts the method of marrying his eldest sister Lu Sarah to achieve the purpose of continuing contact with Tita through this loveless marriage. This co-location of contradictions makes Pietro appear extremely hypocritical, and adds to the pain in Dita’s unfortunate emotional experience, which also weakens the anti-feudal and anti-traditional work to a considerable extent. nature. At this point, it also reflects that the work is influenced by the fatalistic thoughts in Indian culture. Except for Sophie, all the characters are at the mercy of fate. The conservative concept of the native Spanish tradition from abroad also made the tragic fate of the characters in the film inevitable, and made it inevitable that the events, relationship between the characters, and the plot trend were distorted and absurd.
It is undeniable that Alfonso Yarrow, the director of "Love in Chocolate", has a very good skill in the unique narrative method of the film. The story is told smoothly and beautifully, and the audio-visual elements of the film are used very skillfully without showing any trace. It shows the death caused by the strong feelings bound by tradition and the lust that has been suppressed for too long. The photography also accurately reflects the director's intentions in the scene and light color processing. However, due to the above limitations, at the end of the film, Tita and Pietro’s love for Romeo and Juliet in Latin America will inevitably give the audience thinking about whether their death is a kind of rebellion, a kind of rebellion. The holy pursuit of freedom and love, or ultimately "recognize one's fate", as a defender, become a burialist in the feudal tradition?
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