Customer Reviews

A Wonderful World

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This may be consider a black comedy film. It is not cheerleading AMLO as a poor reviewer mentioned before. It is presenting with black humour the silly position of politics in order to get a solution to the expenses in social-care and "create" a perfect Mexico. It is not cheerleading social-care, but it is portraiting a very radical right wing position.

Juan Perez is a lovable, hapless drunk who enters the World Finance Center's building in Mexico City to catch some Zzzz after another cold and rainy night of drinking tequila. Little did he know the janitor would come into the office for some light cleaning. Frightened, Juan climbs out the window to hang on the ledge (which was tense enough to watch, knowing how much tequila he had had). When he screams "Help Me" to passers-by below, people think he was attempting suicide. He plays along with that idea, telling everyone it was his poor life that brought him to his grief.

His condition catches the attention of the wife of the Secretary of the Interior. The wife convinces her husband to get Juan a nice home, a car and even a job. The husband complies, as he wants to be the next president of the World Bank.

For a while Juan's life is a reflection of his dreams: a wife, a house, a car, a family. But all that is lost...

The movie starts out in a happy mood, but ends in a bittersweet tale. I don't want to mention anything else or otherwise I'd spoil the end. This is a movie that can certainly incite heated discussion of global economies, working classes, and status of wealth.

This movie shows how money can corrupt, how family and friends are important, how living happily does not always mean having a lot of money,although "one day of being rich beats a lifetime of being poor." But this movie also shows the class distinctions and class treatments and the discrimination between rich and poor in Mexico. One can argue that this movie mocks the current Mexican government and its treatment of its poor.

One thing I noticed is that all the governmental workers in this movie were white Spanish Europeans. Even the poor people were mostly poor whites--europeanos--and not indigenous or indios who tend to seek illegal entry into the US for a better way of life. Was this portrayal intentional?

On a technical note, the subtitles were often hard to read because the font was small and many of the words were white-on-light background.

This is a movie I intend to play for a Spanish-language class. Hearty disussion on social issues will always follow a movie such as this one.

Unlike the director's earlier masterpiece, La Ley de Herodes, this film is not brave political commentary against corruption but rather blatant politcal cheerleading for the Mexican fascista Chavista, Andres Manuel Lopez Perdedor. If you are part of the AMLO cult, by all means watch and enjoy. If you are among the great majority of Mexicans who voted against him, however, this whole film will feel like a grand waste of time.