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更新时间：2023-07-24 12:27
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拉丁美洲的作品常常带着魔幻荒诞的色彩，影片故事正是发生在这里的墨西哥。艾莲娜是一个抚养三个女儿的寡妇，她的小女儿蒂娜（卢米·卡范佐斯 Lumi Cavazos饰）和青年佩德罗（马克·莱昂纳蒂 Marco Leonardi饰）相爱，但母亲却按照家族规矩，要把大女儿柔沙嫁给佩德罗，同时声明蒂娜要照顾自己直到归西。 佩德罗和柔沙结婚了。婚礼上，他向蒂娜吐露爱意，让蒂娜更加心伤。她的眼泪簌簌掉下，落到正在制作的菜肴上，于是，客人们竟然尝出了苦味。从此，蒂娜把自己压抑的爱意都融合在烹饪中，一家人的情绪竟随着她的烹饪心情或情欲高涨，或压抑阴沉。当蒂娜终于等来和佩德罗相守的日子，压抑已久的感情却化成了熊熊燃烧的烈火。
长篇影评
1 ) 爱情之火
带着一点点的荒诞，讲述完了爱情。
我是不太喜欢男主的，正如女主所说，还不如情愿当初他带她私奔。不过这本身就是个荒诞的故事，所以也没必要太较真了。
还是二姐潇洒，情来，不管三七二十一上马走人，多好，真性情。那才是敢爱敢恨。而男主女主算什么呢，说爱，又太弯弯绕绕。
人生，也常常走弯路吧，到头来，才发现又回到原点。
我是不太喜欢男主的，正如女主所说，还不如情愿当初他带她私奔。不过这本身就是个荒诞的故事，所以也没必要太较真了。
还是二姐潇洒，情来，不管三七二十一上马走人，多好，真性情。那才是敢爱敢恨。而男主女主算什么呢，说爱，又太弯弯绕绕。
人生，也常常走弯路吧，到头来，才发现又回到原点。
2 ) 欲望的魔力
很多年前，在《前沿》上看到这部影片的大概，《前沿》使我们那儿地方台一个专门介绍电影的节目，我还记得那个主持人叫海洋，成都的豆瓣们应该都看过吧，那个节目开始的时候我觉得很好很好，在那个电脑还不属于我的时代（我当时读初中，BT和迅雷根本是啥都不知道，大概当时还没迅雷吧，蚂蚁？我觉得上网就是看一下网页就很了不起了）起码让我看到了各钟题材的电影，商业的也好，冷门的也好，对我以后看各类电影和爱看电影奠定了基础，扯远了，不过再说一点呵，那个节目因为介绍各类电影，所以播的片子好多都是盗版碟，不过没办法吗，因为这个节目介绍的都是抢在国内上映之前或是根本就不上映的，当然只有盗版碟（有正版也不会买，那个年代租影碟的铺子都靠盗版碟赚钱了，正版太贵了！），但是估计后来收视率太高了，节目引起关注了，节目首先开始缩水，到后来销声匿迹了～～，遗憾啊。。。
说了这么多，结果没一句正题的，其实我就是想说事隔多年，一直对这部片子念念不忘，就是因为它的魔幻太超前了，现在魔幻电影到处都是，一片泛滥，人家阿方索都玩过了的，还有就是阿方索把人的欲望融入食物当中，但是又是非常直白的表示出来了，大胆！欲望使一切都变得有魔力，包括食物情感，死亡，命运以及宿命。
说了这么多，结果没一句正题的，其实我就是想说事隔多年，一直对这部片子念念不忘，就是因为它的魔幻太超前了，现在魔幻电影到处都是，一片泛滥，人家阿方索都玩过了的，还有就是阿方索把人的欲望融入食物当中，但是又是非常直白的表示出来了，大胆！欲望使一切都变得有魔力，包括食物情感，死亡，命运以及宿命。
3 ) 巧克力情人——不是评论，是叙述。
当她把洋葱放在头顶上，我猜编剧想说是：当你想哭的时候，把那个让你流泪的东西放在头顶，哭个痛快。
我带着这样的预设开始了观影。
编剧第一次让我吃惊，是婚礼上的呕吐，那时大家吃了蛋糕都开始哭泣，包括她们极端主义的母亲。蒂娜提前离席，地上躺着一个人，光线昏暗，我没看清是谁。但当蒂娜那尖刻的母亲质问她为什么在蛋糕里下呕吐以后，答案昭然若揭。蒂娜告诉妈妈娜查死了。娜查用死亡完成了抗争，她深爱蒂娜，把她当做自己的孩子。
第二次，是佩德罗送的玫瑰，在蒂娜胸前划出三道红色的血印。然后玫瑰化作料理，蒂娜的爱和欲端上餐桌，佩德罗甘之如饴，二姐甚至欲火中烧。另一边，母亲和大姐的脸色可真不好看。紧接着，仿佛是这道玫瑰料理的催化，二姐私奔，赤身裸体随着游击队长驾马而去。
第三次，是长长的披肩，就是佩德罗答应娶她姐姐那晚，蒂娜开始织的，当时旁白是这样说的：织得足以盖住她全身。但这一次当披肩正式出场的时候，我们看到的长度仿佛是这个已经“疯”了的女孩长长的心路，是她一个个难熬的漫长的夜晚，从马车上，从她的肩膀上，一直往后延伸，拖在地上，拖了一路，像加冕的红毯。
这一次，也是她对母亲的第一次反抗。
在这里，医生第二次出现，第一次他就对蒂娜青眼有加，这一次，她随着他的马车离开。
在医生家里，蒂娜不说话了，也不吃东西，她伸出双手，感受到了解放，她想做飞鸟，但仍未下定决心。
“我们每个人诞生之初，心里就有一盒火柴，一盒我们自己无法点燃的火柴。”医生的话为故事的结局埋下伏笔，也是编剧借医生之口吐露的心声。
接下来，医生求婚，母亲死亡，蒂娜发现了母亲的钥匙，它一直挂在母亲的脖子上，它带蒂娜找到了母亲的秘密。这是钥匙第二次出现，上一次，是母亲吃下蛋糕在蒂娜大姐婚礼上流泪的时候。
二姐回来了，这档子，正值大姐主动请求蒂娜帮忙挽回丈夫，蒂娜和佩德罗发生关系失去贞操。二姐鼓励蒂娜追求幸福。蒂娜完成了对母亲幽灵的第二次反抗。这里狗狗又出现了，每次母亲在蒂娜心里的幽灵出现，狗狗都会狂吠。这一次，母亲的退场格外渗人，芩查进入厨房，用两扇木门把母亲的幽灵关在外头。颇有意味的是，这一次过后，当佩德罗和蒂娜挽着手走在路上，狗吠再次响起，狗狗出现，母亲的幽灵却没有来。这是蒂娜内心的坦荡，她变得更坚强豁达了。或者说她已经有了目标，她要反抗，她要旧势力旧传统在她这里终结！
二姐离开了，在与佩德罗的对峙中，蒂娜表明自己没有怀孕，只是月经不调。医生带着奶奶来提婚，看起来真是格外美好的一家人，之前看医生仆人和医生儿子的相处，还有医生时刻带着的真挚笑容，就觉得这一家很美好。蒂娜告诉了医生自己失去贞操，以及对佩德罗的爱意。但医生却仍然尊重蒂娜让她自己做决定。蒂娜献上了感激的吻。
接下来，时间突然快进到一场婚礼。年轻人的婚礼，姐姐和佩德罗的女儿和医生儿子的婚礼，婚礼上佩德罗向蒂娜求婚。医生黯然神伤。
姐姐死了，二姐回来了。这是旧势力的终结，新势力的开始。
在这场婚礼上，蒂娜第二次回答她做菜的秘方：用爱来做菜。
孩子走了，佩德罗和蒂娜终于可以毫无顾忌地拥有彼此，佩德罗把蒂娜抱进了点满了烛火的房间，在二人的交合中，佩德罗突然趴下，死了！
蒂娜拿过长长的毯子，盖住二人，然后拿出一盒火柴，一根根抽出，放进嘴里，咀嚼，吞咽，然后她的身后有火花冒出，她开始燃烧，整座房子燃烧！这时候才明白这个点满烛光的房间是什么意思。这就是医生说的话，他们最终燃尽了自己，这就是医生给蒂娜看的画，在那束光的中间，一男一女赤身裸体依偎在一起的剪影。
影片的结尾，一切回到开头，还是那个女孩，坐在厨房，她把洋葱顶到头上。爱和厨艺都已经传到了蒂娜的孙辈，这个女孩，早就摆脱了旧势力对女性的束缚，她在厨房怀念她的祖母，切着洋葱。
4 ) Food, Feminism and Fantasy in Como agua para chocolate
照旧，三年前的文字。已经不能全权代表我对电影的理解和对爱情、生活的理解了，但放在这里，以回顾一下从前自己的视角，也是有意义的。
Como agua para chocolate (Like Water for Chocolate) is a novel written by Laura Esquivel. Published in 1989, it was a long-running best seller in Mexico. (Shaw 37) It remained over a year on the best-seller list of the New York Times and was translated into twenty-nine languages. (Shaw 37) In 1991, Mexican film director Alfonso Arau, also Laura’s husband, decided to adpat the best-seller a film. Then Como agua para chocolate turned out to be the most commercially successful Mexican film of the 1990s. (Shaw 37) However, the high gross of the film did not give a true impression of the state of the Mexican film industry. (Shaw 38) In 1990s, low-quality genre films relying on sex and violence prevailed the national film market in Mexico. (Shaw 38)
The film does not reflect a true picture of Mexico either. Following the government’s model of public and private investment, involving Aviasco (a Mexican airline) and the Ministry for Tourism, the film “promotes a conservative, romantic image of rural Mexico that would please the Ministry of Tourism and that belied the reality of mass poverty and ever increasing urbanization.” (Shaw 39) “It is represented as a rural land, which has maintained its culinary and social traditions.” (Shaw 51) The director has commented “the government is very grateful because the film did a great job in promoting tourism and the image of Mexico”. (Shaw 39)
From Novel to Film
Como agua para chocolate tells the story around the Garza family during the Mexican Revolution (1910-1917). (Lopez-Rodriguez 62) In the ranch ruled by the family, Mama Elena makes decisions for her three daughters—Gertrudis, Rosaura, and Tita—regardless of their own desires. (Lopez-Rodriguez 62) Both the novel and the film begin with Esperanza’s (Tita’s niece) careful reading of an inherited cookbook from Tita, and it brings back the memory of the Garzas. Tita is born on the dinner table in the kitchen in 1910. She is brought up by the family servant Nacha in the kitchen, where she learns her talent in cooking. As the youngest daughter of the family, Tita is destined to care for Mama Elena till the last second and is prohibited to marriage. However, in a family dinner, young Tita met a young man, Pedro Muzquiz. They soon fell in love with each other and claimed each other as the only love in the life. Pedro proposes to the Garzas, but Mama Elena turns it down. Instead, Pedro marries Tita’s sister Rosaura in order to be near to Tita. While Mama Elena keeps tormenting Tita, Tita confines herself in the kitchen, making all the delicious and creative dishes for the family. Magically, her emotion is blended into every dish she makes and has the ability to influence everyone who tastes the food she makes.
In Esquivel’s novel, the story is presented as a cookbook, sequenced with twelve months, with a recipe for each month. The twelve recipes each conclude a chapter, carrying special historical and ethnic implications within the ingredients and the procedures. Although the loving way the camera focuses on food makes clear to the film audience that food is a central character in this story”, the film shifts away from the original structure of the novel and brings the storyline without recipes as separation. (Lopez-Rodriguez 63) Many detailed dishes mentioned in the novel is only given a glimpse in the film, or even omitted, while the other ones are described carefully with the camera language. For instance, the February recipe of capones (capons) and the April recipe of mole de guajolote con almendra y ajonjoli (turkey in almond and sesame sauce) are both cut from the plot, and caldo de colita de res (oxtail soup) and tortas de Navidad (Christmas rolls) are only provided with the simplest description. The several recipes Alfonso Arau focuses on are pastel Chabela de bodas (Chabela wedding cake), codornices en petalos de rosa (quail in rose-petal sauce) and chiles en nogada (chili peppers in walnut sauce). Coincidently, two of these three dishes are specially made for the two weddings in the film, and each brings out a different effect. The emphasis of food in the film and the implications of the recipes will be explored later in the essay.
The rest of the story continues in a traditional way. Rosaura soon delivers a baby, and Tita uses her virgin breast milk to feed her. After finding out the vaguely unbroken relationship between Tita and Pedro, Mama Elena sends Pedro and Rosaura away, as well as the baby. Away from Tita, the baby dies, and the reason is believed to be the food. Tita goes insane and hides herself in the dovecote until John Brown, the ranch doctor, picks her up to his house. John takes care of Tita and helps Tita to reconstruct the confidence to face life. Determined to start a new life, Tita accepts John’s proposal. The moment Tita and Pedro reunite on the ranch, both of them know that their passion for each other does not go away. The day John leaves the ranch they have an affair. As a husband, John is always so understanding and tolerant. He forgives the adultery. At the end of the film, John drives car away for business. Pedro takes Tita to the barn house. In the house, the ghost of Nacha appears and lights every candle in the house. In the soft yellow light, Pedro and Tita’s love “finally blossom”. (Hart 172) Metaphorically indicated by the narrator, “all the matches inside Pedro’s body light at the same time”, and the brightness brings him to the eternal of peace. Tita begins to swallow matches, with the memory involving Pedro and her flashing back. She catches fire from the inside meets Pedro in the tunnel to eternity of love.
As the script written by the author of the novel, the film is able to retain the original flavors. The story is kept as original, and with the help of visual language, the film can do what the words cannot do. It puts imagination into reality on screen as well as transforming the story into a sumptuous Mexican feast.
Food in Como agua para chocolate
As “an important topic in the field of cultural materialism”, food is able to “bring to the forefront those elements of life that were traditionally overlooked because they belonged to the domestic sphere and not to the public, broader, male sphere.” (Lopez-Rodriguez 66) Many directors apply food as a medium to convey the meanings. In Ang Lee’s Eat Drink Man Woman, food is a mirror to Chinese culture and ideology. In Lasse Hallström’s Chocolat, food is a gifted creation of magic potion to cure the lagging and obstinacy of the town residents. In Sandra Nettleback’s Bella Martha, food gives a place for communication and enables people to know each other.
In Como agua para chocolate, Alfonso Arau puts tons of emphasis on food. Food plays the central role artistically and commercially. Preparation for food is provided close-up features in the film. The scenes are treated with tenderness and sequential details. Lighting, music and narratives accompanies to strengthen the emotions implicated by the scenes. More than visual enjoyment, the recipes also connect the characters and the storyline. Conclusively, the use of food generally serves functions in four dimensions: as a tag of identity, a language of communication, an expression of creativity and freedom, and an eye into Mexican society in revolutionary and contemporary period. It also offers a space for the story to turn into a magic realistic fairytale.
Language of Expression
Food is a metaphor for emotion throughout the film. Gifted as a very sensual woman, Tita is “repeatedly portrayed tasting, seeing, smelling, touching, and hearing. It is only logical that she communicates through an activity that comprises all the senses.” (Lopez-Rodriguez 68) At the time when Tita and Pedro firstly fell in love, Tita described “Pedro’s gaze on her shoulders” as “what raw dough must feel when it comes in contact with hot oil”. “Bubbles break out of her body”. The medium of food solidifies abstract feelings in Tita’s world, and Tita is able to resort to expressing her feelings through the creation of delicacy in the limited area of kitchen. In the kitchen, food is translated into a new language. In the film, Tita’s recipes are always related to whatever is happening to her at the time. One of the scenes is that in which Tita prepares the quails in rose petal sauce. Right after “Pedro has given her the roses to congratulate her on her excellent culinary skills on the anniversary of her first year as the house cook, and she uses them in defiance of her mother in this dish.” The cooking process is split in sequential details—peeling of rose petals, bundling the quails, grinding rose petal sauces, and adding a drop of mysterious seasoning—representing as an expression of her love for Pedro. “This scene is accompanied by lush piano music that highlights the connection between romance and the culinary process.” (Shaw 51) Here, “cooking is Tita’s way of telling him what she cannot vocalize.” (Lopez-Rodriguez 69)
Realizing the possible communication between Pedro and her through food, Tita feels “compelled to create more and more recipes that will keep alive the love” that Mama Elena and Rosaura had tried to prohibit. (Lopez-Rodriguez 69) “It is this need to create or re-create delicious dishes that moves Tita to put in writing all the recipes she has received from Nacha; that is how their cookbook is born.” (Lopez-Rodriguez 69)
Territory of Freedom and Creativity
We can understand that the kitchen offers Tita an area of “unrestricted freedom” to escape from Mama Elena’s tyranny. (Shaw 50) In the kitchen, Tita is given a free voice to express herself, a territoriality for creativity. (Lopez-Rodriguez 67) Mama Elena tries to control everything of Tita, restricting her from marriage according to the old convention that the youngest daughter should care for mother till death. But her power is limited outside the kitchen. Due to the lack of culinary experience, she never tells Tita what to cook and how to cook, so cooking provides “an outlet for the creativity Mama Elena is always restraining.” (Lopez-Rodriguez 68) So here Tita finds “a means of self-definition and survival”. (Lopez-Rodriguez 66)
“The liberation through food and cooking is not limited to Tita alone, but also occurs for the people who eat her meals.” (Lopez-Rodriguez 68) In Tita’s territory, her emotions evoked by personal experience are also transferred to others through food. “She feels and she makes others feel.” (Lopez-Rodriguez 69) When blending the flour and eggs for making Rosaura and Pedro’s wedding cake, Tita unintentionally drops a tear into the ingredient. It turns out that during the wedding reception, whoever has a bite of the cake, is reminded of the sorrow of lost love. In an old Spanish love ballad, a sense of melancholy and frustration from “love of their lives” spreads through every guest and the scene culminates in a collective of vomiting. “Uncontrollable outbursts of pleasure, sadness”, which is usually forbidden in the ranch, is let free with the help of Tita’s food. (Lopez-Rodriguez 68)
Kitchen as An Eye
Esquivel has pointed out in an interview: “the kitchen, to me, is the most important part of the house. It is a source of knowledge that generates life and pleasure.” (Hart 173) Como agua para chocolate offers a “feminine kitchen-eye’s view of those turbulent years during Mexican Revolution (1910-1917), which is “at odds with the masculinity rhetoric of the history books with their emphasis on battles and the struggle for civic power.” (Hart 173) “The film, in its content, including modernization, the increase of social inequality, and the growth of feminism. This can be seen in the way that it ignores all of these issues and reinvents the past in such a way as to negate social history. The image of Mexico sold to national and international audiences through the film are filled with nostalgia for a mythical past. In this reinterpretation of the past, gender roles are clearly delineated, class and ethnic tensions are ignored, and nobody goes hungry.” (Shaw 39)
The cookbook received by Esperanza is an essential clue in the film. It connects different races and cultures in the film and “symbolizes not only the loving relationship among women but also the preservation of Nahuatl heritage and its mixture with Spanish and Ceole elements”. (Lopez-Rodriguez 70)
“Nacha and Chencha, members of ethnic minorities, have been denied by the dominant white upper class the possibility of expressing their knowledge through any medium other than the recipes they cherish. By passing the recipes on to the next generation they are not only able to communicate some practical information but to preserve elements of an indigenous culture that would otherwise be lost.” (Lopez-Rodriguez 69)
Construction of Fairytale
Labeled as magical realism, Como agua para chocolate is consisted of numerous fantastic scenes beyond reality and a bunch of fairytale traditions. The main roles in the film have their counterparts, which can be found in traditional fairytales. The romantic heroine Tita is like Cinderella, arduous and kind, while at the meantime suffering the inequality caused by a wicked mother, Mama Elena. Tita is so talented as a maternal role model that she even knows how to deliver the baby. “Bound to the kitchen from the moment of her emblematic birth in this very same room, Tita is treated first by her mother and later by Rosaura as just another servant.” (Lopez-Rodriguez 67) The setting even parallels with the story of Cinderella. John Brown, the fiancé of Tita, is the benevolent, careful and tolerant doctor that can be found in many 18th century fairytales as a positive figure without imperfection. In Como agua para chocolate, his tendance heals Tita’s sorrow for love and his great breath of mind forgives the adultery between Tita and Pedro. Nacha and Chencha are the servants who are satisfied with the status of being ruled and have a loving relationship.
Moreover, besides the setting of the roles, the strange alchemical reaction brought by food and the abrupt passion of people all tell the story in the language of fairytale.
Reference:
Ching, Eric, Christina Buckley, and Angelica Lozano-Alonso. Reframing Latin America. Austin: University of Texas P, 2007. 286-305.
Como Agua Para Chocolate. Dir. Alfonso Arau. Perf. Marco Leonardi, Lumi Cavazos. Videocassette. Buena Vista Home Video, 1992.
Esquivel, Laura. Como agua para chocolate: novela de entregas mensuales con recetas, amores y remedios caseros. México, D.F.: Editorial Planeta Mexicana, 1989.
Esquivel, Laura. Like Water for Chocolate: a Novel in Monthly Installments, with Recipes, Romances, and Home Remedies. Trans. Carol Christensen and Thomas Christensen. 1st ed. New York: Doubleday, 1992.
Halevi-Wise, Yael. "Storytelling in Laura Esquivel's Como agua para chocolate." The Other Mirror: Women's Narrative in Mexico, 1980-1995. Ed. Kristine Ibsen. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood P, 1997. 123-130.
Hart, Stephen M. A Companion to Latin American Film. Woodbridge: Tamesis, 2004. 171-178.
Lopez-Rodriguez, Miriam. "Cooking Mexicanness: Shaping National Identity in Alfonso Araus Como agua para chocolate." Reel Food. Ed. Anne L. Bower. New York: Routledge, 2004. 61-73.
Segovia, Miguel A. "Only Cauldrons Know the Secrets of Their Soups." Velvet Barrios: Popular Culture& Chicana/O Sexualities. Ed. Alicia G. Alba. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. 163-178.
Shaw, Deborah. Contemporary Cinema of Latin America: Ten Key Films. New York: Continuum, 2003. 36-51.
April 6, 2008
Como agua para chocolate (Like Water for Chocolate) is a novel written by Laura Esquivel. Published in 1989, it was a long-running best seller in Mexico. (Shaw 37) It remained over a year on the best-seller list of the New York Times and was translated into twenty-nine languages. (Shaw 37) In 1991, Mexican film director Alfonso Arau, also Laura’s husband, decided to adpat the best-seller a film. Then Como agua para chocolate turned out to be the most commercially successful Mexican film of the 1990s. (Shaw 37) However, the high gross of the film did not give a true impression of the state of the Mexican film industry. (Shaw 38) In 1990s, low-quality genre films relying on sex and violence prevailed the national film market in Mexico. (Shaw 38)
The film does not reflect a true picture of Mexico either. Following the government’s model of public and private investment, involving Aviasco (a Mexican airline) and the Ministry for Tourism, the film “promotes a conservative, romantic image of rural Mexico that would please the Ministry of Tourism and that belied the reality of mass poverty and ever increasing urbanization.” (Shaw 39) “It is represented as a rural land, which has maintained its culinary and social traditions.” (Shaw 51) The director has commented “the government is very grateful because the film did a great job in promoting tourism and the image of Mexico”. (Shaw 39)
From Novel to Film
Como agua para chocolate tells the story around the Garza family during the Mexican Revolution (1910-1917). (Lopez-Rodriguez 62) In the ranch ruled by the family, Mama Elena makes decisions for her three daughters—Gertrudis, Rosaura, and Tita—regardless of their own desires. (Lopez-Rodriguez 62) Both the novel and the film begin with Esperanza’s (Tita’s niece) careful reading of an inherited cookbook from Tita, and it brings back the memory of the Garzas. Tita is born on the dinner table in the kitchen in 1910. She is brought up by the family servant Nacha in the kitchen, where she learns her talent in cooking. As the youngest daughter of the family, Tita is destined to care for Mama Elena till the last second and is prohibited to marriage. However, in a family dinner, young Tita met a young man, Pedro Muzquiz. They soon fell in love with each other and claimed each other as the only love in the life. Pedro proposes to the Garzas, but Mama Elena turns it down. Instead, Pedro marries Tita’s sister Rosaura in order to be near to Tita. While Mama Elena keeps tormenting Tita, Tita confines herself in the kitchen, making all the delicious and creative dishes for the family. Magically, her emotion is blended into every dish she makes and has the ability to influence everyone who tastes the food she makes.
In Esquivel’s novel, the story is presented as a cookbook, sequenced with twelve months, with a recipe for each month. The twelve recipes each conclude a chapter, carrying special historical and ethnic implications within the ingredients and the procedures. Although the loving way the camera focuses on food makes clear to the film audience that food is a central character in this story”, the film shifts away from the original structure of the novel and brings the storyline without recipes as separation. (Lopez-Rodriguez 63) Many detailed dishes mentioned in the novel is only given a glimpse in the film, or even omitted, while the other ones are described carefully with the camera language. For instance, the February recipe of capones (capons) and the April recipe of mole de guajolote con almendra y ajonjoli (turkey in almond and sesame sauce) are both cut from the plot, and caldo de colita de res (oxtail soup) and tortas de Navidad (Christmas rolls) are only provided with the simplest description. The several recipes Alfonso Arau focuses on are pastel Chabela de bodas (Chabela wedding cake), codornices en petalos de rosa (quail in rose-petal sauce) and chiles en nogada (chili peppers in walnut sauce). Coincidently, two of these three dishes are specially made for the two weddings in the film, and each brings out a different effect. The emphasis of food in the film and the implications of the recipes will be explored later in the essay.
The rest of the story continues in a traditional way. Rosaura soon delivers a baby, and Tita uses her virgin breast milk to feed her. After finding out the vaguely unbroken relationship between Tita and Pedro, Mama Elena sends Pedro and Rosaura away, as well as the baby. Away from Tita, the baby dies, and the reason is believed to be the food. Tita goes insane and hides herself in the dovecote until John Brown, the ranch doctor, picks her up to his house. John takes care of Tita and helps Tita to reconstruct the confidence to face life. Determined to start a new life, Tita accepts John’s proposal. The moment Tita and Pedro reunite on the ranch, both of them know that their passion for each other does not go away. The day John leaves the ranch they have an affair. As a husband, John is always so understanding and tolerant. He forgives the adultery. At the end of the film, John drives car away for business. Pedro takes Tita to the barn house. In the house, the ghost of Nacha appears and lights every candle in the house. In the soft yellow light, Pedro and Tita’s love “finally blossom”. (Hart 172) Metaphorically indicated by the narrator, “all the matches inside Pedro’s body light at the same time”, and the brightness brings him to the eternal of peace. Tita begins to swallow matches, with the memory involving Pedro and her flashing back. She catches fire from the inside meets Pedro in the tunnel to eternity of love.
As the script written by the author of the novel, the film is able to retain the original flavors. The story is kept as original, and with the help of visual language, the film can do what the words cannot do. It puts imagination into reality on screen as well as transforming the story into a sumptuous Mexican feast.
Food in Como agua para chocolate
As “an important topic in the field of cultural materialism”, food is able to “bring to the forefront those elements of life that were traditionally overlooked because they belonged to the domestic sphere and not to the public, broader, male sphere.” (Lopez-Rodriguez 66) Many directors apply food as a medium to convey the meanings. In Ang Lee’s Eat Drink Man Woman, food is a mirror to Chinese culture and ideology. In Lasse Hallström’s Chocolat, food is a gifted creation of magic potion to cure the lagging and obstinacy of the town residents. In Sandra Nettleback’s Bella Martha, food gives a place for communication and enables people to know each other.
In Como agua para chocolate, Alfonso Arau puts tons of emphasis on food. Food plays the central role artistically and commercially. Preparation for food is provided close-up features in the film. The scenes are treated with tenderness and sequential details. Lighting, music and narratives accompanies to strengthen the emotions implicated by the scenes. More than visual enjoyment, the recipes also connect the characters and the storyline. Conclusively, the use of food generally serves functions in four dimensions: as a tag of identity, a language of communication, an expression of creativity and freedom, and an eye into Mexican society in revolutionary and contemporary period. It also offers a space for the story to turn into a magic realistic fairytale.
Language of Expression
Food is a metaphor for emotion throughout the film. Gifted as a very sensual woman, Tita is “repeatedly portrayed tasting, seeing, smelling, touching, and hearing. It is only logical that she communicates through an activity that comprises all the senses.” (Lopez-Rodriguez 68) At the time when Tita and Pedro firstly fell in love, Tita described “Pedro’s gaze on her shoulders” as “what raw dough must feel when it comes in contact with hot oil”. “Bubbles break out of her body”. The medium of food solidifies abstract feelings in Tita’s world, and Tita is able to resort to expressing her feelings through the creation of delicacy in the limited area of kitchen. In the kitchen, food is translated into a new language. In the film, Tita’s recipes are always related to whatever is happening to her at the time. One of the scenes is that in which Tita prepares the quails in rose petal sauce. Right after “Pedro has given her the roses to congratulate her on her excellent culinary skills on the anniversary of her first year as the house cook, and she uses them in defiance of her mother in this dish.” The cooking process is split in sequential details—peeling of rose petals, bundling the quails, grinding rose petal sauces, and adding a drop of mysterious seasoning—representing as an expression of her love for Pedro. “This scene is accompanied by lush piano music that highlights the connection between romance and the culinary process.” (Shaw 51) Here, “cooking is Tita’s way of telling him what she cannot vocalize.” (Lopez-Rodriguez 69)
Realizing the possible communication between Pedro and her through food, Tita feels “compelled to create more and more recipes that will keep alive the love” that Mama Elena and Rosaura had tried to prohibit. (Lopez-Rodriguez 69) “It is this need to create or re-create delicious dishes that moves Tita to put in writing all the recipes she has received from Nacha; that is how their cookbook is born.” (Lopez-Rodriguez 69)
Territory of Freedom and Creativity
We can understand that the kitchen offers Tita an area of “unrestricted freedom” to escape from Mama Elena’s tyranny. (Shaw 50) In the kitchen, Tita is given a free voice to express herself, a territoriality for creativity. (Lopez-Rodriguez 67) Mama Elena tries to control everything of Tita, restricting her from marriage according to the old convention that the youngest daughter should care for mother till death. But her power is limited outside the kitchen. Due to the lack of culinary experience, she never tells Tita what to cook and how to cook, so cooking provides “an outlet for the creativity Mama Elena is always restraining.” (Lopez-Rodriguez 68) So here Tita finds “a means of self-definition and survival”. (Lopez-Rodriguez 66)
“The liberation through food and cooking is not limited to Tita alone, but also occurs for the people who eat her meals.” (Lopez-Rodriguez 68) In Tita’s territory, her emotions evoked by personal experience are also transferred to others through food. “She feels and she makes others feel.” (Lopez-Rodriguez 69) When blending the flour and eggs for making Rosaura and Pedro’s wedding cake, Tita unintentionally drops a tear into the ingredient. It turns out that during the wedding reception, whoever has a bite of the cake, is reminded of the sorrow of lost love. In an old Spanish love ballad, a sense of melancholy and frustration from “love of their lives” spreads through every guest and the scene culminates in a collective of vomiting. “Uncontrollable outbursts of pleasure, sadness”, which is usually forbidden in the ranch, is let free with the help of Tita’s food. (Lopez-Rodriguez 68)
Kitchen as An Eye
Esquivel has pointed out in an interview: “the kitchen, to me, is the most important part of the house. It is a source of knowledge that generates life and pleasure.” (Hart 173) Como agua para chocolate offers a “feminine kitchen-eye’s view of those turbulent years during Mexican Revolution (1910-1917), which is “at odds with the masculinity rhetoric of the history books with their emphasis on battles and the struggle for civic power.” (Hart 173) “The film, in its content, including modernization, the increase of social inequality, and the growth of feminism. This can be seen in the way that it ignores all of these issues and reinvents the past in such a way as to negate social history. The image of Mexico sold to national and international audiences through the film are filled with nostalgia for a mythical past. In this reinterpretation of the past, gender roles are clearly delineated, class and ethnic tensions are ignored, and nobody goes hungry.” (Shaw 39)
The cookbook received by Esperanza is an essential clue in the film. It connects different races and cultures in the film and “symbolizes not only the loving relationship among women but also the preservation of Nahuatl heritage and its mixture with Spanish and Ceole elements”. (Lopez-Rodriguez 70)
“Nacha and Chencha, members of ethnic minorities, have been denied by the dominant white upper class the possibility of expressing their knowledge through any medium other than the recipes they cherish. By passing the recipes on to the next generation they are not only able to communicate some practical information but to preserve elements of an indigenous culture that would otherwise be lost.” (Lopez-Rodriguez 69)
Construction of Fairytale
Labeled as magical realism, Como agua para chocolate is consisted of numerous fantastic scenes beyond reality and a bunch of fairytale traditions. The main roles in the film have their counterparts, which can be found in traditional fairytales. The romantic heroine Tita is like Cinderella, arduous and kind, while at the meantime suffering the inequality caused by a wicked mother, Mama Elena. Tita is so talented as a maternal role model that she even knows how to deliver the baby. “Bound to the kitchen from the moment of her emblematic birth in this very same room, Tita is treated first by her mother and later by Rosaura as just another servant.” (Lopez-Rodriguez 67) The setting even parallels with the story of Cinderella. John Brown, the fiancé of Tita, is the benevolent, careful and tolerant doctor that can be found in many 18th century fairytales as a positive figure without imperfection. In Como agua para chocolate, his tendance heals Tita’s sorrow for love and his great breath of mind forgives the adultery between Tita and Pedro. Nacha and Chencha are the servants who are satisfied with the status of being ruled and have a loving relationship.
Moreover, besides the setting of the roles, the strange alchemical reaction brought by food and the abrupt passion of people all tell the story in the language of fairytale.
Reference:
Ching, Eric, Christina Buckley, and Angelica Lozano-Alonso. Reframing Latin America. Austin: University of Texas P, 2007. 286-305.
Como Agua Para Chocolate. Dir. Alfonso Arau. Perf. Marco Leonardi, Lumi Cavazos. Videocassette. Buena Vista Home Video, 1992.
Esquivel, Laura. Como agua para chocolate: novela de entregas mensuales con recetas, amores y remedios caseros. México, D.F.: Editorial Planeta Mexicana, 1989.
Esquivel, Laura. Like Water for Chocolate: a Novel in Monthly Installments, with Recipes, Romances, and Home Remedies. Trans. Carol Christensen and Thomas Christensen. 1st ed. New York: Doubleday, 1992.
Halevi-Wise, Yael. "Storytelling in Laura Esquivel's Como agua para chocolate." The Other Mirror: Women's Narrative in Mexico, 1980-1995. Ed. Kristine Ibsen. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood P, 1997. 123-130.
Hart, Stephen M. A Companion to Latin American Film. Woodbridge: Tamesis, 2004. 171-178.
Lopez-Rodriguez, Miriam. "Cooking Mexicanness: Shaping National Identity in Alfonso Araus Como agua para chocolate." Reel Food. Ed. Anne L. Bower. New York: Routledge, 2004. 61-73.
Segovia, Miguel A. "Only Cauldrons Know the Secrets of Their Soups." Velvet Barrios: Popular Culture& Chicana/O Sexualities. Ed. Alicia G. Alba. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. 163-178.
Shaw, Deborah. Contemporary Cinema of Latin America: Ten Key Films. New York: Continuum, 2003. 36-51.
April 6, 2008
5 ) 天堂般的味道
带着这种心情去做你喜欢的事情,让人们感觉甜蜜..
最近想象天堂的生活:不用思考.不用选择.不用语言去诉说解释什么.
朱古力是甜蜜的 我爱吃的 不忌讳发胖的.神秘的.她的配料是什么做成的呢>我想做她的人 一定诸入了爱情的原料..不然为什么如此甜蜜?
酒.寝室.人物..母亲.表演.妓女.包袱.思想.累.坚持.加油.爱.想念.珍惜
最近想象天堂的生活:不用思考.不用选择.不用语言去诉说解释什么.
朱古力是甜蜜的 我爱吃的 不忌讳发胖的.神秘的.她的配料是什么做成的呢>我想做她的人 一定诸入了爱情的原料..不然为什么如此甜蜜?
酒.寝室.人物..母亲.表演.妓女.包袱.思想.累.坚持.加油.爱.想念.珍惜
6 ) 爱情是无罪的，罪就在于你的选择
爱情是没有罪过的，我们根本掌控不了，会在什么时候爱上什么人。但是像男主角那样，明明爱着妹妹却和姐姐结婚似乎太不地道了吧。明明可以只是一个人可以受伤，这下好了，三个人在同一个屋檐下，共同受伤。妹妹还要接受道德的考验，还要忍受思念的痛苦。如果是我，不管多爱，他结婚了新娘不是我，那么这便是结局，game over. 做为一个成熟的人，应该懂得控制自己的感情。如果把自己的爱情幸福，加在原本不应该的痛苦之上，我想我做不到。
我不羡慕他们在婚后各种思念各种爱情各种真爱的流露，我甚至觉得Tita应该嫁给那个医生，他才是真正爱女主的。就算给不了tita想要的爱情，但是他会祝福，会为tita争取作为一个女人应该有的名分。
爱情不允许有背叛，背叛的不是爱情，而当爱情真正转为亲情的时候，那便是大爱了。没有什么可以分割。
爱情就像巧克力，先苦后甜，如果加了泪水的巧克力like water for chocolate 那便失去了真爱的味道，没有了意义，只有涩涩的苦。
我不羡慕他们在婚后各种思念各种爱情各种真爱的流露，我甚至觉得Tita应该嫁给那个医生，他才是真正爱女主的。就算给不了tita想要的爱情，但是他会祝福，会为tita争取作为一个女人应该有的名分。
爱情不允许有背叛，背叛的不是爱情，而当爱情真正转为亲情的时候，那便是大爱了。没有什么可以分割。
爱情就像巧克力，先苦后甜，如果加了泪水的巧克力like water for chocolate 那便失去了真爱的味道，没有了意义，只有涩涩的苦。
过于松散，也没有把美食的魅力和轰轰烈烈的爱情表现得很好
充滿仇恨的上一代再把仇恨帶給下一代，但是這並不是逃不出的牢籠。為何不離開呢？最後很多的痛苦都是可以避免的。最喜歡Gertrudis和醫生，至少在我看來他們是最自由的角色（雖然醫生在電影裏面看上去好猥瑣。。。><）。
美食成为传递情感的通道，爱与恨都在食物的色香味中发酵酝酿，食物在拉美这块神奇土地上也拥有了灵魂和生命；浓重的色彩与馥郁的气息，让纷纷的情欲更具官能性，爱在食物中永生。
很神奇的故事。第一次体会到厨师的心情和菜色之间的奇妙关系。看的第一部墨西哥片。
极具魔幻荒诞的爱情故事，通过食物表现情欲。导演对于爱的阐述令我疑惑，爱的感觉是得到有张力的表达，但是真爱也许还是在水中月雾中花的背后让人难以琢磨透彻。
拉美的魔幻现实风，真的是很特别啊！用真感情做的美食，是会有魔力的，看得我想下厨了！不过人物各种动机都赶紧很奇怪，妈妈为啥就偏偏要二姐嫁给Tita喜欢的人，这不是自己把两个女儿都往火坑里推嘛！而Pedro也是，就这么同意了？说搬去Texas就搬去Texas了？岳母这么有权势？这么虚伪的男人还爱了一生？最终以为Tita会选择医生，没想到啊，唉！几个女演员的身材健康动人，特别二姐出逃那一段，太好看太魔幻了！
美食爱情电影添洒魔幻现实辅料，一出形似的拉美灰姑娘现代版，但其核心故事的爱情部分实在别扭，接受不能，而关于传统桎梏与追求自由的部分同样并不出彩。【联合国教科文组织】 墨西哥影史十五佳NO.14
拉丁美洲真是俯拾皆是魔幻现实主义，甚至让女主长得像性转吉伦哈尔这件事也变得魔幻起来。这部电影里，封建女农场主的四个女儿，一个吃了妹妹做的充满悲伤的吃席死了;一个被妹妹菜里的激情点燃引来了兵痞被掳走后成为一代女枭雄;一个奉母命嫁给妹妹的爱人最后抑郁而亡死于消化道疾病死后也在不断放屁;最后一个也就是女主，历经艰辛终成眷属，和爱人一夜激情后爱人和蜉蝣一样死了，女主想起前未婚夫关于火柴的传说，不停地吃火柴想再见爱人一面，最后自己和房子一起燃尽了。女主的母亲在十年二十年前绝对是封建礼教不通人情的代表，现在这种经济下滑人们自发万事求稳的大环境下，反而作为寡妇打理农场拉扯女儿，在外敌面前勇于持枪反抗（但失败了）的一面值得敬佩。
我怎么像是看了南美洲版灰姑娘的感觉！在厨房出生的女主厨艺一流，甚至如同女巫般魔法化美食，我倒更看重女主的厨情！而这份旷世的难道不是变态扭曲的爱情吗？一个大男人入赘到本就病态的家族，是因为他不能和心爱的姑娘结婚，转而和她的姐姐结婚，这样就能日日见到心爱之人！
只有二姐才是真正逃离了家族诅咒的那个叛逆者，当她品尝下第一口鹌鹑玫瑰后，赤裸着身子奔向从远方赶来的陌生人，她就真正地逃离了命运。剩下的人，即使一辈子都在爱和烹饪，都还是最终归于烈火和诅咒。
妈妈扭曲人生后荒谬反对，姐姐的固执与牺牲，医生的通达与成全，NACHA和CHENCHA两个仆人的笑容，都让这爱来的更加浓烈，“如果一次强烈的感情爆发。会点燃我们心中所有的火柴，火柴的光亮会照亮那条我们早已忘记的生之路，灵魂就会回到神的身边”这样神奇的结尾为真爱画上完美的句点.哭了
惊艳于字句之间流淌的食欲与性欲，果真是改编自Laura Esquivel的长篇拉美魔幻现实主义文学，掺杂香料和汗珠的旁白，又是芬芳浓郁的，又是饱满灼热的，选用当季食材的传统墨西哥菜谱开启一年四季十二个月份每一章节，三月里蒂塔接过爱人送的玫瑰，拥进胸口，划出三道鲜红血痕，花香馥郁忍不住用玫瑰花汁炖煮鹌鹑；赫特鲁迪斯吃完这道掺着爱的鲜血，玫瑰花瓣，和鲜嫩的鹌鹑肉汁的菜，汗津津跑去木屋洗澡，可情欲太过炙热，水淋在皮肤上立刻蒸发，房子在她周身燃烧起来，她赤身裸体逃离，奔向荒原，周身还在散发着抑制不住的玫瑰花露可爱的香气，飘至几里远。Laura在书里写：“我看着这些智慧的女人，在进入厨房这块圣地之后，如何摇身一变而成为女修士，成为炼金师，摆弄着水风火土，这些组成宇宙的四大元素。”
韩有长今，美有蒂娜，爱情融入烹饪，美食诠释爱情。魔幻料理，爱之神迹，浓情朱古力，情欲色味香，化作烟火化作灰
当时是因为译名下的这个片子，结果看完发现和巧克力并没有太多的关系~英文名更能表达出这故事的本质，水之于巧克力，相互不可或缺的两个人，因为封建家风，纠缠几十年最后燃烧至死。医生真是好人，最后嘴吞火柴点燃自己还挺魔幻。
为毛我觉得有点雷？
拉丁美洲的文学作品永远带有迷一样的魔幻，当然拍成电影总会意犹未尽大打折扣。此片忘了当年收藏过VCD没有了，反正DVD应该看过；后来大唐蓝光出了影碟，我又重新看了一遍，只是没有及时标注，这次补標也是重新再看，重新加深对这部带有色香味的电影感受那种美味的诱惑。玫瑰花瓣酱炖鹌鹑一段拍的美轮美奂，可谓中国的食色性都在这小节里得到了完美诠释，玫瑰花刺伤了美女的胸部皮肤血沾上了花瓣里花瓣炼成了玫瑰酱香飘四溢，色香味，食色性，倾注了无限欲望爱心血液通过食物侵入培罗的躯体内，挑逗地，芳香地，浓烈地完全感官地（罗曼蒂克）通过新的沟通方式由蒂塔发送，培罗接受，通过食物的感官接触（催情），而间接的参与者也欲火难耐，浑身上下散发着迷人的玫瑰花の香味，飘香四溢，让每个男人垂涎欲滴，而此时的画面唯美性感但是没有那种淫荡
8/10。影片就好比墨西哥的烹饪传统：百感交集，优雅又激情。蒂娜出生时泪水竟蒸发出20斤盐，身为处女却哺育了外甥，象征一种要继承家族传统的宿命，美食也是魔幻现实主义的重要部分：吃了泪水蛋糕的宾客悲从中来、呕吐不止，传达了蒂娜和佩德罗永恒的情念，当两人子女新婚之际，胡桃酱辣椒勾起往昔两种情绪；沾血玫瑰作佳肴的鸳鸯释放了压抑的爱，吃完欲火焚身的姐姐在淋浴棚冲凉，体热让淋浴棚燃烧，裸体的姐姐被联军长官骑马俘走象征打破女性枷锁；叙事通过让孙子阅读祖母食谱来经营广阔的时代背景，神奇的牛尾汤忆起往昔切洋葱避免流泪的步骤，食谱在柴火中欲火重生的意象具有一种细腻美丽的魅力。母亲的灵魂徘徊不去，保持着生前不近人情的蛮横，将灵魂描绘成传统权威的禁忌，历史与神话阴阳交错。暧昧的用光、拉美鲜明的地域特征，梦幻感唾手可得。
或许真是期望太高，现在看反而觉得过分“奇幻”。女主角就应该演演微笑镜头就对了。眼泪真是挤出来的啊。
红瓣香草脍鹌鹑，情融于手，爱溶于口，情欲浓于色香味。饮食男女，魔幻厨房
矫情到发抖，女演员难看...