Customer Reviews

Who The Hell Is Juliette? [VHS]

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
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Carlos Marcovich first film is a must for every film student or film fan. Carlos had been a succesful photography director and video clip director. In one of these video clips he met Juliette, a Cuban prostitute. The film has a mixture of humour and sadness showing the constrasts between the lives of Juliette and Faviola, a Mexican model. It is filmed as if there was no script and if only Marcovich's talent was the driver of the story Well done. It deserves all the prices it received And finally, Marcovich was born in Argentina. Tango music can be heard in the film as a tribute to his home country

Starring Yuliet Ortega, Fabiola Quiroz, Victor Ortega, Jorge Quiroz. The best cinematography I've seen for ages, especially the opening credits with an awsome white wave crashing against the rocks and upsettingthe dominant blue of the sky. Very experimental documentary like film, shot in three locations over a period of some three years. Mexican cinematographer & Director Carlos Marcovich won an award for this, his debut film. It's about a girl's journey out of the slums, and the people who interact with her in her extrodinary quest to rid herself of the enveloping hardship of the "barrio". Moving and witty portrayal that can sometimes drain and confuse the viewer by constantly shifting from one character interview to another with no breaks or chance to fully absorb the plot. Originality and cinematography steal the show though, in what is surely to be a film that brings much needed inspiration and relief from the usual Hollywood Commercial Drugery.

This 1997 movie, much of it filmed along the sea wall in Havana, is a beautiful, playful, and ultimately deeply moving exploration of two young women, the incredibly vivacious 16-year-old promiscuous Cuban Yuliet Ortega and her green-eyed Mexican model would-be mentor, Fabiola Quiroz. I agree with the San Francisco Chronicle quote that only a poet could have dared so much and succeded so completely. Among the many innovations here are a send-up of the popular "mockumentary" structure-these people are either real or an incredibly undiscovered bevy of the world's most accomplished Latin actors. There are many touching, laugh out loud moments-and the laughter is heartfelt, resulting from the innocent depths of youthful sweetness and naivete that mark these young Cubans' joyful and yet heartbreaking lives. Yuliet's white father has left on a perilous trip across the straits of Florida to settle in the United States; her mother has attempted suicide by immolation (she fails but then succumbs to a heart attack). She is raised by her toothless black grandma, who beats her but clearly loves her, and who talks about the Stanislavsky method and her thanks to Yuliet (Italian for Juliette) for finally allowing her to realize her dream as an actor. The film actually shows what is good about Cuba (Yuliet's presumably lambasting remarks about Castro are muted)-its interracial harmony, the abiding hope and sweetness of its citizens, and its freedom from the poisoning influence of souls sacrificed upon the altar of the dollar. Very innovative, deeply personal and credible (e.g., Yuliet: "I just want to say, to any of you who are still left in the theater, that I never did sleep with the director"), and ultimately a cinematic act of uncompromising love.

I was introduced to this film by a friend of mine. What drew me to the story, more than anything, was the theme of fatherless young women. I, too, was a fatherless young woman up until last November when I finally met my biological father--a physics professor from Venezuela.

Fabiola, the beautiful Mexican model, and Yuliet, the beautiful, sassy and broken sixteen year old prostitute from Cuba are amazing to watch. Both young women grew up without knowing their biological fathers and carry emotional baggage and pain locked up in their hearts. Although, the subject matter of child prostitution, despair and intense identity crisis seem heavy, the film is funny and uplifting. It also is emotionally rich and may very well make you cry. I found myself wishing the best for both young women. Their beauty and strength of character really struck a chord in my heart. Thank you to the director and the young women who brought so much to this story.

Who the hell is Juliette? is a small masterpiece that drips with verve and spontaneity. By turn sexy, funny, sad and raucous, it serves up a gritty and refreshing look at a streetwise Cuban girl's search for identity against the backdrop of contemporary Havana. Yuliet Ortega steals the show with her nubile energy and sensuality. And hats off to director Carlos Marcovich for the beautiful cinematography. Makes me want to visit Cuba one day. Recommended.

This is a beautiful movie but I think the above reviewers are incorrect in labeling Yuliet a prostitute. Many young Cuban girls, left with no way to earn a living, go to the beaches and engage in sex with European tourists for food and money. It is an occasional thing and not a regular and continual practice.

This film showed the reality of Cuban life, which is brutal, hand to mouth and desperate. The interpersonal relationships are very bad, grandparent to grandchild and brother to sister or husband and wife. Lots of domestic abuse, rampant infidelity, sexism, rape and child abuse. The Cuban culture is very mixed up and tragic all around. The lives of Cuban women are terrible indeed.

A friend of mine sent me this film and it has haunted
me forever since. Two two women with absent fathers, the 16-year-old exuberant Cuban girl Yuliet Ortega and the melancholy Mexican model Fabiola Quiroga are intertwined by director Carlo Marcovich in a film masterpiece which erases the boundaries between fiction and documentary like Tom Wolfe infused new jounalism with the technique and spirit of the novel. Marcovich has a perfect sense of pitch, balancing humor and tragedy, elegant lithe cinemaphotography and superb music and sound, a playful sense of dreamy wonder and the absolutely real feel of the street and barrio. Just the way Marcovich moves his camera around Havana and the barrio is a poem.

While this is a work of startling absolute originality, it evokes memories of the greatest filmmakers: The two women of Persona, the awareness of the fourth wall and the self aware politics of the camera of Jean Luc Godard, the inner dream world of Fellini and Bunuel.

Fantastic. Seen it a million times. Ortega - so alive - makes me wonder where she is.

Who the hell is Juliette? is small masterpiece that drips with rawness, verve and spontaneity. By turn sexy, funny, sad and raucous, it serves up a refreshing and absorbing look at the search for identity against the backdrop of modern-day Cuba. Yuliet Ortega steals the show with her nubile energy and senuality. And hats off to director Carlos Marcovich for the beautiful cinematography. Makes me want to visit Cuba one day. Recommended.

The director combines speedy dialogs - filmed on beautiful locations in Cuba - with strange stories told by unique people. Therefore, the film seems to balance between fiction and non-fiction. The plot is unpredictable and funny but in a way also traggic.

One of the most unique documentaries ever made. A feast for the eyes as well as the mind.