Midaq Alley

Starring:Ernesto GÃ³mez Cruz, MarÃa Rojo, Salma Hayek, Bruno Bichir, Delia Casanova, Margarita Sanz, Claudio ObregÃ³n, Juan Manuel Bernal, Abel Woolrich, Luis Felipe Tovar, Daniel GimÃ©nez Cacho, Gina Morett, Ã“scar Yoldi, Esteban Soberanes, Eugenia LeÃ±ero, TiarÃ© Scanda, Ines Cuspinera, Daniel Birman Ripstein
Director: Jorge Fons
Studio: Fox Lorber
Product Type: DVD

Description

Starred by Mexican Hollywood star Salma Hayek and with 49 international awards, (including a Golden Ariel Award and a Goya Award Winner for Best Spanish Language Foreign Film) this is the most-awarded film in Mexican history! The story, based on the Nobel Prize-winning novel, Miracle Alley, takes place in a rundown neighborhood in Mexico City where three people's lives meet and intertwine. Rutilio, owner of the local canteen, finds himself frustrated in his marriage with Eusebia and discovers new yet strange personal feelings. The young barber, Abel, along with Don Fidel, are both in love with the beautiful and sensuous Alma (Salma Hayek), daughter of Cata, the tarot reader. Susanita, a dreaming spinster, looks for love but in reality falls prey to a thief. As their paths gradually cross, the characters are temporarily condemned to a tragic and solemn future. The desperate characters are struggling to escape their circumstances in any way they can but the only one thing they have in common is that, in the end, none of them gets what they really want.

Customer Reviews:

Good movie, good idea.......2005-10-28

Maybe the movie isn't the greatest movie ever made, but it does have a great idea. Very Pulp Fiction like in the sense it follows 4 people version of the same story. It's not as twisted as Pulp Fiction, but nontheless pioneering.

Salma does a good job acting, but the guy that becomes her pimp at the end is horrible. An okay storyline with okay acting

I definitley recommend buying the movie

Just one awful cliche........2005-07-25

What I've got from this movie.
Poor people, because of their condition will lack a hint of wisdom. They'd always be one-sided and make all the wrong choices.
I don't get how this drivel gets good reviews or awards.
It's like shakespeare for toddlers, senile people, or kids with down syndrome.
EVERY single character in this movie approaches life like a child. There are no characters you'd want to follow.

maybe it is just me, but I'd like some form of complexity in characters, even if just a tad small. nothing too sophisticated in this case, but a dash of purpose or determination could do. For example, a little hindsight in what drives the players in the movie would've been good. But you don't get that. Instead you get a handful of really unbelievably ignorant, if nothing but extremely stereotypical personas in a mexican slump, people that when it comes to a desicion, they will ALWAYS react like animals..

They don't struggle with anything, they just react. The only struggle would've been trying to develop any of these characters into something you'd want to follow, because they can't even get their asses to do anything good, or bad. You know. there's black and white or gray. There's a whole lot of black here. no evil, no good, just ppl wearing dumb on their sleeves. The same thing all way through it with no contrast whatsoever. You can't set up tragedy by victimizing 'dumb'. I personally couldn't care for any of these people. If anything I was mildly amused with the predictable ending.

Overall, I find this film very similar to the black-explotation films of the 70s in that respect, in that this Latin genre is blending into one pot of the same cliche that appeals "fresh" to the indy types that aren't used to seeing third world living. The kind of pseudo-literati that oftens tries to pass this up as "passionate", simply because the characters are stupid and lead their lives with their cocks or anger instead of their brains. Sadly, instead of reality they get in exchange a view of a world that's been heavily distorted and skin deep.

Venevision edition.......2005-04-12

Bad news, contrary to what the package says, this edition has Full Screen transfer... but at least the extras are really good, and the english subtitles are removable

This masterpiece is my favorite movie ever..........2005-02-12

This film has not had the exposure it deserves, since it is truly a masterpiece, not only of Mexican film but of international film in general. It takes the idea of viewing one story from different perspectives to new heights, as we watch how ten different things can all be happening at once, without any of those involved realizing what is going on.

The film uses a technique that has now been copied ad nauseum, beginning each section with a title screen containing one character's name and then telling the "same" story from that character's perspective. But each of these perspectives is completely disconnected from the others and creates a set of snapshots of the life on Miracle Alley at one point in time.

Because each character is so different from the others (a middle-aged man in an unhappy marriage, a young woman struggling to survive in a heartless world, a wealthy but homely woman who doesn't fit into the society around her), the film gives a great overview of different types of people who probably do exist in Mexico today, all so very diverse. Could be an eye-opener for many American viewers who look at Mexicans as one big indistinct mass, since this film shows just how different the people living on one tiny street can be.

It truly is my favorite movie of all times (and I have seen a lot!), so I must recommend it.

Average customer rating:

This masterpiece is my favorite movie ever...
Different Perspectives Played Out in a Game of Dominos
El Callejon de los Milagros
Two words: Salma Hayek
A well told story

Midaq Alley
Starring: Ernesto Gómez Cruz , María Rojo , Salma Hayek , Bruno Bichir , and Delia Casanova
Director: Jorge Fons
Manufacturer: Fox Lorber
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: 1572526599
Release Date: 1999-11-16

Description

With humor, pain and love for mankind, the film tells the story of three neighbors whose lives are intertwined. Rutiloio, the family man with homosexual feelings; Susanita, who dreams of getting married but falls prey to a thief; and Alma (Salma Hayek), a virgin who becomes a cocaine snorting prostitute. Interactive Menus, Scene access, Production Credits, Awards, Filmographies

Customer Reviews:

This masterpiece is my favorite movie ever..........2005-02-15

Different Perspectives Played Out in a Game of Dominos.......2005-02-08

Egyptian writer Naguib Mahfuiz won the Nobel Prize for this complex story originally set in Cairo and transposed to Mexico City (El Callejon de los milagros) and the result was a 1995 Mexican film that won essentially every award available after its release. Now ten years later if it looks a bit less than tidy in production elements including acting, this film at least served notice that the Mexican film industry was coming of age (and producing such greats as 'Amores Perros', 'Y tu mama tambien', 'El Crimen del Padre Amaro', etc).

MIDAQ ALLEY is a poor neighborhood in Mexico City populated by a group of folk whose lives interact in complex ways. There are three central characters - Alma (Salma Hayek), Susanita (Margarita Sanz) and Rutilio (Ernesto Gomez Cruz) - each of whom is a dreamer and as such pursues lives that result in dire circumstances. Rutilio, while married to the long-suffering ignored Eusebia (Delia Casanova) and father to an aimless son Chava (Juan Manuel Bernal) - is a closeted gay man whose sexuality becomes public when he encounters Jimy (Esteban Soberanes). His son discovers the two in embrace and beats him severely, forcing Chava to flee Midaq Alley to the US to escape the law and his father's anger. Chava's best friend Abel (Bruno Bichir) is in love with the beautiful Alma but agrees to flee with Chava to the US, pledging he will return to marry Alma when he has become 'wealthy in America'.

Alma feels forsaken and it is not long before she gives in to a smarmy pimp who removes her from Midaq Alley with the promise of wealth, beautiful clothes, and drugs.... Susanita is a less than attractive spinster who owns the boarding house where many of the charaacters live. She is convinced by Alma's fortune telling mother Dona Cata (Maria Rojo) that love is on the way which only allows Susanita to become enamored with a young wily thief Guicho (Luis Felipe Tovar) who marries her for her money and dumps her.

Each of these character's stories is told through separate chapters that start from an initial unity of dialogue over a game of dominos and demonstrate the various perceptions of versions of 'truth'. The concept works well and the stories are better fleshed out because of the technique. The film is well photographed, moves with a rapid pace for a two hour + movie, and is only weak in the acting from the conprimario roles, each of which remains nebulously unexplained and frustrating. The main characters give it their all and the result is a film that almost becomes compelling. Were it re-made today, given the growth in Mexican cinema prestige, it probably would be a powerful movie. Grady Harp, February 2005

El Callejon de los Milagros.......2003-07-07

The movie itself is a great mexican masterpiece, but avoid this DVD at all cost

It have none extra features, and the worst of all, you can't remove the english subtitles.... the aspect ratio is Full Screen and the audio is 2.0

I recommend this movie in a VHS rather than a DVD

(unfortunatelly the only dvd version of this movie, is this featureless DVD... grrr!)

Two words: Salma Hayek.......2002-06-01

Let's face it. This film won 49 awards from Latin American film festivals (including 1995 Ariel award - the Mexican Oscar - for best movie) but never really got a big welcome on the American market, even after being shown at the Washington D.C. International Film Festival. Was it because, when it comes to this kind of romantic drama, American moviegoers had seen a lot better? This film was acclaimed for a good screenplay (based on the novel by an Egyptian Nobel prize winner) and its cast and crew deserved some credit for their efforts, but all for all, it did nothing but reminded me of a fabulous classic, 1959's "Imitation of Life" (with Lana Turner, Sandra Dee and Susan Kohner).... Anyway, now that Salma Hayek has worked her way to stardom, anybody who's interested in her stunning beauty wouldn't want to miss her debut as an actress in "Midaq Alley". That's fair, because she truly carried the film so well. Although Margarita Sanz also won some Best Actress awards, people would definitely tend to remember more of Alma than of Susanita -- or so I think.

A well told story.......2002-04-08

Beginning with a game of dominoes in a Mexico City cantina, we are introduced to the people who frequent this neighborhood bar and then to their families, and the extended family of their poor neighborhood, ironically known as Midaq Alley or Callejon de los Milagros. We watch helplessly as a series of events unfold drawing in other characters and changing their lives forever.

As the film progresses, this same game of dominoes begins again and again. Each time, we see how the same basic sequence of events unfold through the eyes of a different set of characters and and how their lives are changed forever.

It's as though the game of dominoes is a metaphor for life. At some level each life touches another and determines what will happens to the other characters. A decision taken by one character limits and directs the choices of the others.

Not having had the advantage of reading the novel in advance of renting the movie, I did not have a preconceived notion of how the characters should behave, or how they stacked up against the book. Generally the translation of a novel into a movie is sketchy at best. However, taken at face value Midaq Alley works very well on film.

The plot is strong and the characters are well defined. What appears to be a slight nuance in one sequence becomes the obvious catalyst that motivates a character in a later sequence. The whole effect ties the characters together as an extended family, a neighborhood, a nation, and finally as archetypes for the human experience. I recommend Midaq Alley as the best type of "art film" -- one that serves as a catalyst for thought and discussion.

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