Like Water For Chocolate by Laura Esquivel

815 Words2 Pages

Like Water For Chocolate Romeo and Juliet and The West Side Story , both romantic sagas that unfold into a struggle between love and family tradition and ways. In the two stories a young girl and a young man from different paths find each other and fall in love, and in both, they are forbidden by either family to be together. In the agony of being forced to live apart the lovers eventually come to a point where they can no longer be without one another. Their love is so strong that regardless if they defy their families’ wish, they will do anything to be together, even if this includes death. These European and American stories of the tragic effect of a love so strong that it can kill sets the table for the Mexican film Like Water For Chocolate. This movie tells about desire, love, and rebellion, and is centered around the love of Tita and Pedro, and the struggle of Tita’s family tradition that does all it can to keep them apart. In this movie we are given an opportunity to see how the attitudes of the characters change over time and how true love, once revealed, can never be held. In the early years of the twentieth century, on a small ranch in Mexico, the story of three sisters and their repressive mother unfolds, and Like Water For Chocolate begins. Tita is the youngest daughter of Mama Elena, and, as such, because of a family tradition, she is forbidden to marry or have children until after her mother's death. Tita is agreeable to this situation until she falls in love with the dashing young Pedro. Tita goes to her mother to tell her of Pedro’s intention to meet with her and ask for her daughter’s and his love’s hand in marriage. Mama Elena is angered by this announcement and upon meeting ... ... middle of paper ... ...ura marries. Unfortunately, during their love making, Pedro dies and in the spirit of Romeo and Juliet and The West Side Story, Tita kills herself. An admittedly unusual title for a film, Like Water for Chocolate fits the mood -- odd, playful, and sweet. It equates the boiling point of water for hot chocolate with the height of passion. Told by Tita’s great grandniece this is a story with occasional surrealistic fantasy sequences interspersed between the commonplace goings-on of regular lives, and the film weaves a subtle spell of enchantment until a disappointing conclusion. I believe that this was one of the most beautiful stories of love and its power that has every been told. Even though this is a foreign movie with sub-titles, it is such a strong story that you easily forget that it is in Spanish. This is truly a Romantic classic of all times.

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