Product Details

• Actors:  Rosa Sánchez and Oscar Bertea Freddy Flores
• Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, DVD, Letterboxed, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: Spanish (Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo)
• Subtitles: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: Unrated
• Studio: New Yorker
• DVD Release Date: October 18, 2005
• Run Time: 75 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000ADS6EY
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #107,954 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Bolivia" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Artistic Portrayal of a Universal Subject: Immigration, June 7, 2006

By 

Amazon customer - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Bolivia (DVD)

Coming to this movie with no expectations, I was pleasantly surprised. It deals with the plight of a Bolivian man who is forced to leave his country, and family, in search of work in Argentina, a society that is suffering from its own economic depression. Most of the movie takes place in the café where the Bolivian immigrant has found work as a cook. The frequenters of this establishment are suffering from their own economic hardships and resent the immigrant who is willing to work for less than them.

The film is in black and white and focuses on the daily interactions that take place in the café. While there is not a lot of action, you watch the tension build as the life of one of the characters begins to fall apart and he increasingly makes the Bolivian cook the focus of his anger. The movie also touches on the issue of racism. Well done and definitely worth watching.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Might take multiple viewings but a definite winner, December 8, 2006

By 

Fyah Mon "S. Herman" (Washington Heights, NYC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bolivia (DVD)

I was pleased to come across this dvd at the newly built Bronx Fordham branch of the NYPL. Having not been to Argentina since before the current economic crisis(1994), I was curious to view the Argentina in one of it's roughest eras in almost 2 decades. I've heard the label "Do the Right Thing" Buenos Aires style. That only partly describes it. This story DOES take place in a restaurant, similar to Sal's Famous Pizza. And it does focus on racism and prejudice in a society, much like ours, that values it's "Whiteness." Although much shorter than Spike Lee's best movie, it does bear similarities and both are very good reference points for modern ideas of racism and prejudice. The "actors" are all referred to by their real names, hence main character Freddy is actually Freddy Flores, Paraguayan/Argentine waitress Rosa is really, you guessed it, Rosa. Shot in black and white on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, it shows an Argentina just barely hanging on. Bolivian "cocinero" Freddy arrives in Buenos Aires and immediately gets hired as a cook, where the customers at the restaurant are for the most part out of work. The tensions build as the story goes, but it is evident from the start. The only "ethnic" looking characters are the cook (Bolivian) and waitress (Paraguayan.) Both of these countries share borders with Argentina but might as well be 1 million miles away. Being of Argentine descent I can agree that most Argentines turn their noses up at their mestizo neighbors. The use of traditional Bolivian music is fantastic and the merging of Bolivian music and imagery is superb. I would like to see more short movies like this and although the scope of Argentine cinema is large this is a great example of Argentine film making.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars seen better from Latin America, December 4, 2011

By 

Brian Maitland (Vancouver, BC, Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Bolivia (DVD)

When you see review blurbs on the case like "GRIPPING!" or "EXHILIRATING..." I was expecting more but this movie is just another art "fillum." First of all, you know it's an art film because it's in black and white. Add in the plodding pace, the tired and worn cliches (working class people hate foreigners who come to their country and "take their jobs").

This has all been done before and far better. I was hoping for more depth and breadth of character from a nation I am fascinated but this sadly fails to meet my expectations.

The extras are just the trailer and deleted scenes, just in case you're actually thinking of forking over any pesos for this piece of "cinema."