Vivir es fácil con los ojos cerrados is a comedy-drama Spanish film produced in Spain by director and screenwriter David Treuba. The film has a Spanish star-studded list of actors and actresses that include: Javier Camara, Natalia de Molina, and Fransesc Colomer. With a release year of 2013, the film is fairly recent and has won a total of 6 Goya Awards for categories like best supporting actress and best film. Although I thoroughly enjoyed this award-winning film as a whole, as a non-Spanish individual, some parts of the film were difficult to understand. Of course the film was not necessarily produced for Americans, but aspects of the film could have been done differently to effectively portray the film to various audiences. Aspects that are typical of Spanish culture could have used some more explanation because if there is a sense of unfamiliarity between the audience and the culture, misconceptions about the culture may arise. …show more content…
It centers around an English teacher, Antonio, who has a dream of meeting John Lennon and an intense passion for his career. When Antonio hears of an opportunity to possibly meet John Lennon at a filming location, he jumps at the opportunity. Along the way, he graciously picks up two hitchhikers, Belen, a young pregnant lady who ran away from a home she was placed in by her parents when they learned of her pregnancy, and Junajo, a schoolboy who ran away from his family due to an abusive relationship that he shares with his father. Vivir es fácil con los ojos cerrados follows their journey to meet John Lennon and their personal struggles along the
Genaro Padilla, author of the article Yo Sola Aprendi: Mexican Women’s Personal Narratives from Nineteenth-Century California, expands upon a discussion first chronicled by the historian, H. H. Bancroft and his assistants, who collected oral histories from Spanish Mexican women in the 1870’s American West. Bancroft’s collection, however, did not come from this time period, but closer to the 1840s, a time where Mexican heritage still played a strong presence throughout most of California. These accounts, collected from many different women, in many various positions and lifestyles, shows just how muted the Mexican female voice could be during this era.
The video “La Raza de Colorado: El Movimiento” and the exhibit “El Movimiento” at UNC’s Michener Library chronicle the struggles and triumphs of Mexican Americans in Weld County and throughout the state of Colorado. Visitors of the exhibit can see different graphics and pictures posted on the walls depicting many of the important events such as the protests against Kitayama farms in the 1960’s which aimed at improving working conditions and pay, especially for women. Not only were farm workers being exploited, but factory workers lacked appropriate conditions as well, to help with this, several groups such as United Farm Workers, Brown Berets and Black Panthers organized a united front in order to launch strikes and boycotts against offending farms, factories and businesses which oppressed and exploited minority workers. Another source of dissent was the Vietnam war. Minority groups felt that White America was waging a war against colored
A debutante’s life came at a price; for the 16 year-old Dolores it was an arranged, loveless marriage to lawyer Jaime Del Rio. Jaime was 18 years her senior, his family one of the oldest and most influential in Mexico. Their wealth allowed for a European honeymoon, where they were invited to dine with the Spanish Royal family. The honeymoon morphed into a three year romp, with Dolores delighting in voice and dance lessons at stately Madrid and Paris schools. In 1921, the couple returned to Mexico City, Jaime intent on advancing his career whil...
A student should never be denied the right to learn and become successful because of a different skin color, or because they speak a different language. “No saco nada de la escuela” by Luis Valdez is a play that discusses the racism in schools. The play starts with students going to elementary school and then ascending to middle school and college. At the beginning the students were not aware of what racism really was because of their innocence. However, the teacher that they had was very racist and bullied the students of color. That experience made the other kids realize that not everyone was the same and because of color or language they should be treated differently. There are five different students who take part of this play, two of those students were white, and there were two Chicanos and one black. That is great diversity of cultures. The teacher that the students have in elementary school was an example of the other professors they were going to have throughout their school years. Very arrogant and not understanding of the minority students. Their teachers were not really interested in teaching the minorities and always showed her discontent of having students of color. Their teachers didn’t believe that students who were part of a minority should be placed in the same classroom as the white students. Maybe that was because they didn’t know the potential a minority student could have. One Chicano student named Francisco never denied his roots and became very successful. He had many obstacles in his learning environment, but at the end he becomes a great example of perseverance. Francisco is the student who I think showed the greatest development in the play. He had to deal with racism all the time, but that didn't stop ...
The main characters in the film include Sebastian and Costa, who happen to be lifelong friends. Sebastian is a compulsive visionary who strives to direct controversial a film about one of history’s most influential figures, Christopher Columbus. He is determined to escalate the “myth” that western civilization's arrival in the Americas was a force for good. Instead, his story is about what Columbus set in motion; the hunt for gold, captivity of, and penal violence to those Indians who fought back. His story is counteracted by the radical priests Bartolome de las Casas and Antonio de Montesinos, the first people to ra...
As the first major U.S. success for a Spanish language film, Como Agua Para Chocolate (Alfonso Arau, 1992) has had a major impact on Hispanic culture and the future of Hispanic cinema. This film has many implicit and explicit layers that challenge typical cultural ideals, not only in Hispanic culture, but in various cultures across the world. Based on his wife, Laura Esquivel’s novel, Arau used this film, known commonly as Like Water for Chocolate, to bring to the surface the liberation of females through the empowerment of food. Although food and cooking are often associated with the oppression and generalization of Hispanic women, Like Water for Chocolate captivates an empowering view of women using intimate and heightened cinematography of the food.
Barrera, Adriana, et al. Cinergia Movie File: Camila. 10 Apr. 2001. 15 Feb. 2005 .
The Anglos in the corrido, meanwhile, are not one-dimensional villains but “complex figures who contain positive as well as negative qualities” (Mendoza 146). These distinctive traits of a corrido – setting, conflict, and characterization, among others – ... ... middle of paper ... ... l. “Ge-or-ge,’ she called in an exaggerated Gringo accent. He looked back.
Valle’s most significant contribution to the Spanish theatre is his invention of the literary style of esperpento, which is best represented in one of his most famous plays, Luces de Bohemia. Valle created esperpento with the aim of representing the harsh realities of Spanish twentieth century society through the concave lens of grotesque deformation, so that he could present the lives of the Spaniards in the light of mockery and absurdity. During his writing of Luces de Bohemia, the Spanish society has been brought to a halt, along with the lack of political progress and social improvement, therefore this concerning political situation has influenced and steered Valle towards his literary evolution, the exaggerated grotesque, which he though was the only suitable way to represent the shocking reality and problems of Spain. In this way, he could alarm the people to terminate their complacent acceptance of this reality and he could also produce a distancing effect which renders the reader immune to the play’s purpose, thus making the artistic experience more tolerable. His experience in the killing fields was what made him t...
The Latin American film genre is one of the most known genre worldwide and one of the most popular and successful of all of the genres in this business around the world. Yearly a number of productions from Latin America become favored and demanded successes, often-earning high levels of recognition and recommendation. In foreign film categories and in events and functions such as the Oscars, which are very highly respected around the world, Latin American films are awarded and praised and unquestionably make audiences sit on seat’s edge to bear mind films being produced in countries here. Latin American films are most likely to be as successful as they are because of the mixture of all of the elements, which their cinema provides, including
Throughout his novel, Don Quixote, Miguel Cervantes effectively uses the transformation of reality to critique and reflect societal and literary norms. In three distinct scenes, Don Quixote or his partner, Sancho, transform reality. Often they are met with other’s discontent. It is through the innkeeper scene, the windmill scene, the Benedictine friar scene, and Quixote’s deathbed scene that Cervantes contemplates revolutionary philosophies and literary techniques. The theme of reality transformation does not even stop there. Sometimes the transformations of reality scenes act as mimetic devices. Ultimately, Miguel Cervantes’ use of transformative scenes acts as a creative backdrop for deeper observations and critiques on seventeenth-century Spanish society.
The emotional letter that Juan left for his mother might be one of the most emotional scenes in the documentary. The pure emotions that the letter was written by Juan to her mother leaves the audience with the bonds and emotions felt between the kids and families. Juan Carlos’s father abandoned the family years ago and left to New York, consequently Juan believe it is his responsibility to provide for his family. He also wants to find his father in New York and confronts him about why he has forgotten about them. The story of Juan is not just about migration of children, but also the issue of family separation. The documentary does not dehumanize but rather bring the humane and sensitive lens to the story of Juan where the human drama that these young immigrants and their families live. Juan Carlos is not the first of Esmeralda’s sons to leave for the United states, his nine-year-old brother Francisco was smuggled into California one month earlier. Francisco now lives with Gloria, his grandmother, who paid a smuggler $3,500 to bring him to Los Angeles, California. Once Juan Carlos is in the shelter for child migrants his mother eagerly awaits him outside. After she sees him she signs a paper that says if Juan Carlos tries to travel again, he will be sent to a foster home.
Martinez, Ibsen. "Chaos, Chavismo and Telenovelas." The New York Times. The New York Times, 8 Apr. 2014. Web. 26 May 2014. .
"Benito Cereno," written by Herman Melville, is a novella that portrays Melville’s views on slavery during a time of great political turmoil over the issue of slavery, (six years before the Civil War). The narrator, Amasa Delano, is the captain of a Massachusetts whaling ship called the Bachelor’s Delight. Through out the story, Melville portrays certain situations, which bring attention to the ideas of slavery, and leadership. “Benito Cereno” is a story that depicts the historical incident that occurred in 1805, where black slaves had overthrown the Spanish Sailors. The film La Amistad, produced by Steven Spielberg, was based upon this historical incident. The slave owners are depicted as brutal human beings that want to sell the slaves as quickly and as effortlessly as possible. On the other hand, the slaves want to return to their homes and live the life of a regular human being. Because of the fact that many African Americans were enslaved at this time, many revolts occurred, often even under extremely difficult situations.
Fregoso, Rosa Linda. "Chicana Film Practices: Confronting the 'Many-Headed Demon of Oppression.'" New York, NY: University of Minnesota Press.