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Miracle Alley
- Director: Jorge Fons
- Writer: Vicente Leñero; Naguib Mahfouz
- Producer: Georgina Balzaretti; Alfredo Ripstein hijo
CGiii Comment
In award terms - this is Mexico's most successful film ever.
What should have been rough diamonds in the ghetto turns out to be a comedy romp in the suburbs.
It's very camp...the director preferring slapstick to drama...the actors deliver, admirably.
And then, without warning, it becomes serious - not in a good way.
All the male characters are, frankly, vile - perhaps a reflection on real life?!? How deep our cynicism runs!
Fons directs with predictability and he really should have told the writer to give justification and resolution to some (most) of the storylines - the gay father, who parades his young paramour, appears to simply to stop (in his tracks) being gay.
This has very little to do with the fine novel and less to do with real life - it is a depiction through the directors eyes and he quite likes showing the boom mic.
There are just too many mistakes to justify the awards that this has garnered.
Trailer...
The(ir) Blurb...
Based on the Nobel Prize Winner's novel, the Egyptian Naguib Mahfouz. The story, translated from El Cairo to Mexico City's downtown, narrates the life of the members of the neighbourhood and the connection between them Don Ru, the owner of the local pub; Eusebia, his wife; Chava, his son and Abel his friend, who emigrate to USA in search of fortune; Susanita, the single landtender always dreaming to marry a good man; Guicho, the pub's employee, who extracts the money when Don Ru is not there and finally marries Susanita; Alma, the very good looking girl, the Abel's dream, who becomes a luxury prostitute while he's away; Jimmy, the handsome young man Don Ru becomes infatuated with, etc. This movie won the Ariel (the Mexican Oscar) as best movie in 1995.
Cast & Characters
Ernesto Gómez Cruz as Don Ru;
María Rojo as Doña Cata;
Salma Hayek as Alma;
Bruno Bichir as Abel;
Delia Casanova as Eusebia;
Margarita Sanz as Susanita;
Claudio Obregón as Don Fidel;
Juan Manuel Bernal as Chava;
Abel Woolrich as Zacarías;
Luis Felipe Tovar as Güicho;
Daniel Giménez Cacho as José Luis;
Gina Morett as Doña Flor;
Óscar Yoldi as Ubaldo;
Esteban Soberanes as Jimmy;
Eugenia Leñero as Tina