Cammy Reagan; Carol's Journey

It took me a little bit to settle into this movie, however I think I was able to get the idea behind the movie. Carol was a young tomboyish girl who dressed the part. She wore pants most of the time, she only wore dresses on occasions when they were warranted. She learned quickly that there was some difference in the culture in which she grew up in when she first encountered Tomi. He was a young boy that taunted her as she rode on the back of a horse drawn wagon en route to her grandfather's house. With Tomi's taunts he took her hat away from her. Her response to that was to yell at him and call him a thief. After being in Spain for a few days and getting a bicycle from her grandfather, she encountered Tomi again and wrestled with him to get her hat back. Tomi proved to be stronger than she until she kicked him in his private parts to get the upper hand. Later when they were in the cemetery, Tomi was being harassed by the police and Carol took up for him, consequently the police left Tomi alone and they became friends after that. Her mother proved her American roots when they were on the train and she light a cigarette in front of the priest. She was dressed very modern. There were times that I thought that her mother was ill when she coughed and acted as if she was having trouble breathing. I anticipated her demise when she was sitting on the swing in the garden and Carol went looking for her. She tried to live with her aunt after her mother's death and it was apparent that she did not like the rules of the house, so she ran away--something that would definitely happen in America, then going to live with her grandfather. She was very protective of her father in that she did not want her grandfather to tell him of her mother's death since he was serving in the war. Carol seemed to know the ways around the system as well, since she was able to send letters to her father without her grandfather knowing. Her independence was very apparent throughout this film, with her refusal to wear a dress at her first communion which she really did not want to do, she dressed like the boys did. She also showed her independence when she sat reading a book at the cemetery when her mother died, which has been seen as very disrespectful of the dead. This has not been the culture of Hispanic people in all of the films that we have screened. The other thing that I noticed to be the common theme in all of the films, the importance of family. This was shown when her aunt took her in after her mother's death and her moving to her grandfather's house, both of which took her in without question.
I think if there had been subtitles for this film it may have been a little easier to screen, however I think I was able to figure out the plot of the movie.

Cammy Reagan; Volver

This was finally a film that was not about a long lost love, or a macho man wanting to control his wife. This was, in fact a film that showed the resilience of a woman (Raimunda) who had an childhood filled with sexual abuse at the hands of her father, which resulted in the birth of her child (Paula) named after her Aunt Paula. She spent a lot of time with her Aunt Paula who seemed to be a source of support for her as she dealt with her abuse and the fact that her mother did not notice what was happening to her. She had met and married Paco while she was pregnant with Paula and he assumed the role of her father. She grew up thinking he was her father until one day after the loss of his job, he was home with her. He attempted to rape Paula and she defended herself, subsequently killing him. When Raimunda arrived home, Paula was waiting for her at the bus stop in the rain. She told her mother what had happened and that something had happened, Raimunda discovered Paco dead in the kitchen. In order to protect her daughter, she tells her to always remember that she was the one that killed Paco. She cleans the kitchen and enlists the help of Paula to get him out of the apartment. Raimunda had been entrusted with the keys to Emilio's restaurant while he was away. She managed to get Paco's body in the freezer until she could figure out what to do with it, otherwise.
While Raimunda has is in the restaurant one day, a man comes by looking for a place to buy food for the film crew he was working with in the city, she decides since she is in need of money, to cater a meal for the film crew. This resulted in several meals being catered as well as a party for the finish of the film. Another man tries to see the restaurant and she has to confess to Emilio that she was using the restaurant since Paco had"left them". All the while she is enlisting the help of her friends to get the freezer out of the restaurant and get rid of the body. In the interim, her mother has reappeared as a "ghost". This must be a superstition that is common in the Hispanic culture, as we have seen many films that deal with the visions of spirits. It is believed that Irene the ghost of Sole and Raimunda's mother has been helping take care of their sick Aunt Paula, and Agustina the neighbor has heard her talking to her during the night. After Aunt Paula dies, Irene hides herself in the trunk of Sole's car, ending up living with her and helping her shampoo her clients hair. How strange was it that Sole thought she was a ghost, but she could color her hair, I thought that was pretty funny. Raimunda and her mother finally make amends when they talk about what happened to Raimunda, and Irene tells her of the guilt she felt for what happened to her, she was so angry that she set the fire that killed Raimunda and Sole's father as well as Agustina's mother, who was having an affair with him. Irene made amends for killing Agustina's mother by caring for Agustina when she found out she had terminal cancer and was dying. Irene vowed to take care of her until she died. This film shows how women will always be the care taker, the one who is the solid rock that the children depend on. Even in the Hispanic culture it is the woman that ultimately pushes on and teaches the others to survive no matter what the circumstances are. The women in this film dealt with the adversity in their lives head on and did whatever necessary to protect the family, even if it was against the law.

Cammy Reagan; Guantanamera

I found this film to be very entertaining. It had a common recurring theme for all of the movies we have viewed this quarter...long lost love. As with Tita and Pedro in Like Water for Chocolate, Candido waited for Yoyita to return to him, when she finally returned and they were about to revive the long lost love they had for one another, Yoyita passed away. As with the other films, family plays a huge part as shown with the closeness Gina felt toward her Aunt Yoyita. She was very distraught when she passed away. The other recurrent theme in these films is the macho men, who make all the rules for the women to follow and obey. When they don't do as the husband wishes, they are beaten and made to feel less than human. Adolfo was a very macho man. He was intent on being right and completing his job of delivering Gina's aunt to her grave in Havana no matter what the cost would be. He had visions of greatness and actually daydreamed of a statue of himself being worshipped by others. His affinity toward "greatness" was ultimately the demise of his marriage to Gina, who was expressing her independence from him by purchasing a dress that he did not approve of, as well as her wanting to be her own woman and express her view regarding all of the travel and transfers of caskets in order to reach the final destination of death and the grave, which was pretty comical to me. The mere fact that it seemed to take DAYS to get to Havana for Aunt Yoyita's burial. And then there was Mariano, a long lost "forbidden" love for Gina. (He, too was quite the womanizer as we have seen in several of the films we have screened.) A student that fell in love with her while taking her class, leaving her a note to find expressing his love for her. They lost contact when she stopped teaching and married Adolfo. When they bumped into each other, they both felt the love they had for one another rekindle. They finally reached their final destination when they rode off in the rain on a bicycle, of all things. There were also some things in this film I noticed...the selling of stalks of bananas and bags of garlic when they stopped at small towns. The music was very Hispanic, the salsa style. The rituals that also surrounded the truck driver Ramon with blowing smoke on the tires and inside the truck to ensure safe travel I think were pretty common for this culture. This film was fun to screen!

Cammy Reagan; The Official Story

I found this to be movie heart wrenching. It is amazing that such horrific things can happen in a modern world (even though it was 1976). I was a young wife at that time and find it hard to believe things like that were happening in my era. Gaby was a beautiful little girl that was normal in everyway. I think she had a past that she in her heart knew was there, she just did not realize it. She showed that in the songs that she sang and the way she reacted when her older cousins were playing war games. The one thing I found hard to believe was how naive Alicia was. How could such an educated woman be so unaware of what was happening around her. She taught Argentinan history. How could she not know about the victims of the dirty war? How could she not realize what had happened to her good friend who had been tortured by paramilitary forces for living with a man who was thought to be a submersive? I amazed me that the middle class women could put "blinders" on and not see the world as it was. Caught in the middle of all of this was Gaby and the countless others who were taken or murdered by the military and the brutal Argentine regime.
I did like that Alicia started to figure things out after her conversation with her friend Ana, who finally revealed to her how she was brutalized and the things she witnessed while she was in exile. Alicia's interest was peaked when she questioned Roberto and he told her to put it out of her head. This is where the machismo theme came in, as we have seen in a lot of the films we have seen. Roberto was the "head of the household". He made the rules and Alicia was to follow them. He was to be the breadwinner. I saw him as not only machismo, as he was a father who wanted to keep his family together.
I do not think that Gaby's life would have been hopeless. I think she could have had the best of both worlds. I think that Alicia and Roberto could have worked out with Gaby's grandmother a way for them to be the caregivers for her and let her have her grandmother. She could have given her the family she was never going to know otherwise and the mother and father she knew and loved dearly. This was a very powerful movie. I can see why it won an Oscar.