01-14-2012, 11:55 PM
La Puta y La Ballena (2004) by Luis Puenzo
I grabbed this from the library without really knowing much about it. The settings and actors looked exotic, so ... what the heck.
When I got it home, I learned that the title translates to The Whore and the Whale. You can imagine my excitement at the possibilities for bestiality.
But just to warn you, the bestiality just never comes off, unless it happened during a couple brief naps I took. There are whores, and there's a recurrent whale that keeps beaching itself. But what can I say? The plot as far as I understood it: A woman writer comes down with breast cancer and at the same time discovers nude photos and love letters dating back 69 years. She identifies with the woman the letters were written to and begins to imagine what was going on back then, and those imagined events play out in the movie -- so it jumps back and forth between 2003 and 1944. I believe this is supposed to be a movie about strong women, but I'm not entirely certain it worked that well. There were too many older men delivering pithy philosophical bullshit and it just started seeming pretentious. I don't know. Maybe I just wasn't the target audience, because I suspect a fair number of people might have liked the movie a whole lot more than me.
I did find that the movie had some redeeming value. For one, the swordfight, though it happens out of frame and, well, it's not really a sword, it's a harpoon. Then there's a fair amount of nudity (though no bestiality, dammit) and some girl-on-girl action. And the accordions? I'm going to call this the second best accordion movie I've ever seen. So if you like accordion music, check it out. Which brings us to the lightbulb scenes. And no, I'm not making this up. For whatever reason -- and I suppose I should give a SPOILER ALERT here -- a woman will stick a lightbulb up between her legs and then dance the tango with some guy. When she's done, she pulls it out and it's glowing. Why? How the hell should I know! But it's worth a few points in my book, and a couple more because it totally baffles me. I'll be lying awake tonight trying to figure out what it means if a woman does that with me. Should I take it as flirtaceous? Or is she issuing a challenge, and now I'm supposed to give it a try? Nightmares to follow....
All in all, not the best use of my time. But that's usually the case.
I grabbed this from the library without really knowing much about it. The settings and actors looked exotic, so ... what the heck.
When I got it home, I learned that the title translates to The Whore and the Whale. You can imagine my excitement at the possibilities for bestiality.
But just to warn you, the bestiality just never comes off, unless it happened during a couple brief naps I took. There are whores, and there's a recurrent whale that keeps beaching itself. But what can I say? The plot as far as I understood it: A woman writer comes down with breast cancer and at the same time discovers nude photos and love letters dating back 69 years. She identifies with the woman the letters were written to and begins to imagine what was going on back then, and those imagined events play out in the movie -- so it jumps back and forth between 2003 and 1944. I believe this is supposed to be a movie about strong women, but I'm not entirely certain it worked that well. There were too many older men delivering pithy philosophical bullshit and it just started seeming pretentious. I don't know. Maybe I just wasn't the target audience, because I suspect a fair number of people might have liked the movie a whole lot more than me.
I did find that the movie had some redeeming value. For one, the swordfight, though it happens out of frame and, well, it's not really a sword, it's a harpoon. Then there's a fair amount of nudity (though no bestiality, dammit) and some girl-on-girl action. And the accordions? I'm going to call this the second best accordion movie I've ever seen. So if you like accordion music, check it out. Which brings us to the lightbulb scenes. And no, I'm not making this up. For whatever reason -- and I suppose I should give a SPOILER ALERT here -- a woman will stick a lightbulb up between her legs and then dance the tango with some guy. When she's done, she pulls it out and it's glowing. Why? How the hell should I know! But it's worth a few points in my book, and a couple more because it totally baffles me. I'll be lying awake tonight trying to figure out what it means if a woman does that with me. Should I take it as flirtaceous? Or is she issuing a challenge, and now I'm supposed to give it a try? Nightmares to follow....
All in all, not the best use of my time. But that's usually the case.