Product Details

• Actors: Isabelle Adjani, Carlos Racho
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC
• Language: Spanish
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: Vanguard Cinema
• DVD Release Date: October 11, 2005
• Run Time: 108 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 2.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B0009YNS42
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #182,103 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

ANTONIETA - DVD Movie

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Dark Tale of a Mexican Woman Writer, August 24, 2007

By 

R. Swanson "promise" (New Mexico) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Antonieta (DVD)

Antonietta Rivas Mercado was a writer and social activist who lived during a stormy period of Mexico's history. Her personal life was as dark and dramatic as that of her era.

This film follows her from childhood when, as the daughter of a famous architect, she posed for the golden angel atop the famous column of Independence in Mexico City, and ends when she committed suicide in the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.

As a young woman, she married but left her husband and fell madly in love with a homosexual painter. Their Platonic relationship lasted for several years until she met a Mexican intellectual who was running for president of the country on the platform of offering education to the masses. She, and the painter supported him and eventually she became his lover and prime advisor.

After he was defeated she accompanied him in exile to Paris. In a telling scene, she begs him to tell her if he still needs her. He replies, that, really no one needs anyone, only God. Obviously this wasn't the answer she was hoping for, and that's when she committed her last dramatic act, by pressing the pistol to her heart in the pews of the Notre Dame.

Antonieta's story is told through the eyes of a modern day Parisian psychologist, played by Hannah Schygulla, who is researching the cases of women who committed suicide in the 20th Century. She becomes fascinated by Antonieta's story and travels to Mexico to find out more. There are wonderful film clips of life in Revolutionary and post Revolutionary Mexico showing pictures of female peasants strapped with ammunition for their rifles, and such heros as Pancho Villa, complete with huge sombrero. I found these segments some of the most interesting parts of the film.

The un-named, but overshadowing main character in this film is Death. (It would be an interesting study to compare Saura's fascination with death to that of his Nordic fellow film maker, Ingmar Bergman.) The film opens with a very bizarre scene of a perky, pretty young hostess of a TV cooking show, ending her presentation by putting a bullet through her head. We see death in a multitude of forms throughout the film, including a social club in which the game is to throw a loaded revolver up into the air, the sight of the painter's lover's nude dead body, perhaps killed by his wife...It goes on and on.

The bleakness of the subject matter is mitigated by the physical beauty of Mexico, it's sunny abundance, and the choice of very attractive people playing the leading roles. The photography is splendid, too. Otherwise it might be too dreadful to watch.

I question the casting. The Parisian born Isabelle Adjani, who stars as Antonieta, is very beautiful. With her porcelein skin and delicate frame, and reserved manners, she seems to me to be much more French than Mexican. I would have cast her as the Parisian psychologist, rather than the German Hanna Schygulla. She is charming and quixotic and one can imagine her falling in love with the handsome talented men she met but she lacks the fire and passion that I associate with Latin women. She's always immaculately dressed in tasteful French style and there's never a hair out of place or a hint of sweat on her powdered nose. One wonders what Selma Hayak or Penelope Cruz would have done with the role.

And strangely, although I sat through almost two hours of Antonieta's ups and downs, I felt remote from her, perhaps because her facial expression never changed. We never saw her laugh or cry and I don't recall even a smile.

I loved Saura's flamenco trilogy. I didn't like this nearly as well. Lovers of Mexican culture and history obviously will find much to like. Although we're seeing Antonieta through the eyes of a psychologist I saw nothing to explain her fatalistic behavior. In the end I found this a beautifully photographed biography, but felt no real human response. I think another film maker could have breathed more life into a story of what must have been an amazing person.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars The most horrible transfer to DVD I've ever seen, December 12, 2007

By 

Maximiliano Maza Perez "mexican cinema" (Monterrey, Mexico) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Antonieta (DVD)

Althought Saura's "Antonieta" is frequently considered as a lesser work, this movie doesn't deserve the extremely poor transfer to DVD that Vanguard Cinema made. Obviously taken from a poor TV transmission, the image shows every imperfection you can imagine. I couldn't believe that, in the climatic scene, the film shows a "twisted" TV signal! Frankly A BIG ROBBERY. Please, don't buy this movie (at least the Vanguard Cinema edition).

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars un film médiocre d'une qualité excécrable!!!, November 8, 2007

By 

Jacques (Athens, Greece) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Antonieta (DVD)

C'est un film mineur de Saura mais malheureuseument il y a la sublime Isabelle Adjani!!! Alors j'ai été obligé de l'acheter. Quelle déception. La qualité est pire qu'une cassette VHS. La compagnie Vanguard qui l'a publié est-elle fière de ce produit? Je ne le crois pas!!! Alors fuyez en vitesse! Attendons une nouvelle publication d'un éditeur qui se respècte.