Posted on 11/20/2007 5:43:20 AM PST by tcg
REVIEW: 'Bella' is Beautiful
By Deacon Keith Fournier 11/20/2007 Catholic Online
This movie is about 'Bella', the Italian (and Latin) word for beauty. Bella is also the name of a child through whose eyes we finally see the mystery and meaning of it all as the film concludes.Those who watch this beautiful film are invited to live their lives more beautifully, and live them differently, by making the choice to love.
LOS ANGELES (Catholic Online) - I entered the theater with great expectations. Bella exceeded them all. As is the case with many of the showings of this limited release film, the showing in Richmond, Virginia was sponsored by a charitable organization.
The theatre was filled to capacity.
Bella has received rave reviews and multiple awards, including the prestigious top honor from the Toronto Film Festival. I now understand why. It is a marvelous movie about choice; a life and love affirming film whose deeper meaning continues to unpack in the viewer long after leaving the Theatre.
“Bella” means beautiful. Those who walked out of this theatre were invited to live their own lives more beautifully because of this extraordinary film.
It is not a “religious” movie. Rather, it is a movie about life, complete with all of its struggles and problems and the implications of them all. It is also about the moral life, affirming that our choices not only affect others and the world around us, but also change us. With our choices we, in a sense, can create ourselves anew. When we choose to expand our lives and make room in our world for love, we discover the deeper meaning of beauty.
Much of the film takes place in New York City, complete with its teeming masses of humanity. It provides a backdrop of constant activity and intensity, a metaphor for modern life. The cinematography captures the feel of the hectic pace of our congested lives. This backdrop, with all of its grittiness, is also evident in the in the lives of everyday people swept up in a cacophony of activity.
Jose, played brilliantly by Eduardo Verastegui, is a chef in his brother Manny’s “high-brow” Mexican restaurant. As seen in his deep set wounded eyes, Jose has lived a difficult life. However, he learns to allow time to be a tutor and embraces its lessons. Nina, played tenderly by Tammy Blanchard, is a waitress who is late for work as the film begins because she has discovered that she is with child.
The choices which she and Jose will make, relative to the new life within her, and the unfolding lessons learned through observing the lives of others around them, become the material out of which this film weaves its redemptive message of love, authentic freedom and beauty.
The character development is wonderful. We are introduced to the struggles of the older brother, Manny, whose search for success has hardened him to the needs of people.He has swallowed the promise of the culture of success, using people as objects and losing his way. He will find it again. The interplay which unfolds from his firing of Nina due to her late arrival at work one morning and then his firing of Jose, because he places Nina’s needs over the restaurants success, is a wonderful example of how good filmmaking can teach the lessons of good living.
The character development of the father, the mother and the younger brother is delightful. The environment of familial love which formed José’s character reaches out to embrace Nina, helping to heal her in her time of need. It is this family environment which also explains the depth of soul so evident in Jose as we come to understand the tragedy of his own life and watch it turn to triumph through the choices of love.
This movie is about Bella, the Italian (and Latin) word for beauty. Bella is also the name of a child through whose eyes we finally see the mystery and meaning of it all as the film concludes. This wonderful conclusion occurs after the producer brilliantly uses juxtapositions of times and alternative scenarios which might have been occasioned by alternative choices.
This use of flashbacks and alternative scenarios which might have occurred if different choices were made, invites the viewer to reflect deeply on their own life and choices. It is reminiscent of films I watched when I was a young College student, by the Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman. It is brilliantly done.
The movie is infused with deep symbolism. From the meeting with the blind man at the beginning, whose ability to really see sets the context for the awakening which the main characters will later experience, the eating of apples (one of many biblical symbols of significance) the digging of the garden at the parents Oceanside home, the embrace of the mother and son as Jose opens up, in a torrent of tears, his grief and pain, with the statue of the Blessed Virgin as a backdrop, each scene of this film reveals deeper meaning. The movie develops its message with more than its wonderful words and fine acting. It uses such pictorial symbols with richness.
The movie is profoundly ‘Catholic” without being overtly religious. The love of the family members for each other and for the joy of life and their naturally supernatural faith, is all a witness to the way in which Catholic faith informs Latino culture. It also reaches out to embrace and change Nina, whose experience of her own family was woefully deficient. It leads her to ask at one point if they were “always happy.” Theirs is a joy of life not undermined by having experienced their share of the chalice of suffering but actually deepened through it.
As the film unfolds, the choices made by Nina - and by Jose - to learn the lessons from their painful experiences, all lead to their final decision concerning the child named Bella, for whom the film is so aptly named. The weaving together of the threads of this beautiful movie leaves the viewer, at its end, in tears. These are not the sentimental tears which quickly dry upon leaving the Theater. Rather, they are life changing cathartic tears which flow from beyond the tear ducts. They come from the “heart”, the center of the person, the place out of which life changing decisions are made.
Bella opens up the truth of the meaning of this rich word “beauty.” It invites the viewer to choose life, love and solidarity as the highest good. Jose finds beauty through choosing to love again after a tragedy saps him of life.He admits his past, reaches out to another in greater need, and finds redemption when the choice of sacrificial love is made. Nina learns to truly love through her interaction with this once tormented man and his family, and chooses, in the end, to walk the path to her own reawakening, by choosing life and thereby finding beauty, in the face of Bella.
The spousal love of Angelica Aragon and Jaime Terelli, Jose and Manny's parents, and the family they created out of that love, provide the backdrop for all of this. It is a refreshing portrait of the beauty of faithful married love in an age of infidelity. It also affirms the beauty of the Latino culture. Bella received the Legacy Award from the Smithsonian Institute Latino Center for its contributions to Latino culture, and received commendation from Edward James Olmos at the Miami International Film Festival.
This is the first feature film of Alejandro Monteverde, a close friend of Eduardo Verastegui who played Jose. The company they helped to form, Metanoia Films, is an independent film company. Their mission is to create films which promote what is good in life.
With Bella, they have certainly succeeded.
Bella is beautiful.
By Deacon Keith Fournier 11/20/2007 Catholic Online
This movie is about 'Bella', the Italian (and Latin) word for beauty. Bella is also the name of a child through whose eyes we finally see the mystery and meaning of it all as the film concludes.Those who watch this beautiful film are invited to live their lives more beautifully, and live them differently, by making the choice to love.
LOS ANGELES (Catholic Online) - I entered the theater with great expectations. Bella exceeded them all. As is the case with many of the showings of this limited release film, the showing in Richmond, Virginia was sponsored by a charitable organization.
The theatre was filled to capacity.
Bella has received rave reviews and multiple awards, including the prestigious top honor from the Toronto Film Festival. I now understand why. It is a marvelous movie about choice; a life and love affirming film whose deeper meaning continues to unpack in the viewer long after leaving the Theatre.
“Bella” means beautiful. Those who walked out of this theatre were invited to live their own lives more beautifully because of this extraordinary film.
It is not a “religious” movie. Rather, it is a movie about life, complete with all of its struggles and problems and the implications of them all. It is also about the moral life, affirming that our choices not only affect others and the world around us, but also change us. With our choices we, in a sense, can create ourselves anew. When we choose to expand our lives and make room in our world for love, we discover the deeper meaning of beauty.
Much of the film takes place in New York City, complete with its teeming masses of humanity. It provides a backdrop of constant activity and intensity, a metaphor for modern life. The cinematography captures the feel of the hectic pace of our congested lives. This backdrop, with all of its grittiness, is also evident in the in the lives of everyday people swept up in a cacophony of activity.
Jose, played brilliantly by Eduardo Verastegui, is a chef in his brother Manny’s “high-brow” Mexican restaurant. As seen in his deep set wounded eyes, Jose has lived a difficult life. However, he learns to allow time to be a tutor and embraces its lessons. Nina, played tenderly by Tammy Blanchard, is a waitress who is late for work as the film begins because she has discovered that she is with child.
The choices which she and Jose will make, relative to the new life within her, and the unfolding lessons learned through observing the lives of others around them, become the material out of which this film weaves its redemptive message of love, authentic freedom and beauty.
The character development is wonderful. We are introduced to the struggles of the older brother, Manny, whose search for success has hardened him to the needs of people.He has swallowed the promise of the culture of success, using people as objects and losing his way. He will find it again. The interplay which unfolds from his firing of Nina due to her late arrival at work one morning and then his firing of Jose, because he places Nina’s needs over the restaurants success, is a wonderful example of how good filmmaking can teach the lessons of good living.
The character development of the father, the mother and the younger brother is delightful. The environment of familial love which formed José’s character reaches out to embrace Nina, helping to heal her in her time of need. It is this family environment which also explains the depth of soul so evident in Jose as we come to understand the tragedy of his own life and watch it turn to triumph through the choices of love.
This movie is about Bella, the Italian (and Latin) word for beauty. Bella is also the name of a child through whose eyes we finally see the mystery and meaning of it all as the film concludes. This wonderful conclusion occurs after the producer brilliantly uses juxtapositions of times and alternative scenarios which might have been occasioned by alternative choices.
This use of flashbacks and alternative scenarios which might have occurred if different choices were made, invites the viewer to reflect deeply on their own life and choices. It is reminiscent of films I watched when I was a young College student, by the Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman. It is brilliantly done.
The movie is infused with deep symbolism. From the meeting with the blind man at the beginning, whose ability to really see sets the context for the awakening which the main characters will later experience, the eating of apples (one of many biblical symbols of significance) the digging of the garden at the parents Oceanside home, the embrace of the mother and son as Jose opens up, in a torrent of tears, his grief and pain, with the statue of the Blessed Virgin as a backdrop, each scene of this film reveals deeper meaning. The movie develops its message with more than its wonderful words and fine acting. It uses such pictorial symbols with richness.
The movie is profoundly ‘Catholic” without being overtly religious. The love of the family members for each other and for the joy of life and their naturally supernatural faith, is all a witness to the way in which Catholic faith informs Latino culture. It also reaches out to embrace and change Nina, whose experience of her own family was woefully deficient. It leads her to ask at one point if they were “always happy.” Theirs is a joy of life not undermined by having experienced their share of the chalice of suffering but actually deepened through it.
As the film unfolds, the choices made by Nina - and by Jose - to learn the lessons from their painful experiences, all lead to their final decision concerning the child named Bella, for whom the film is so aptly named. The weaving together of the threads of this beautiful movie leaves the viewer, at its end, in tears. These are not the sentimental tears which quickly dry upon leaving the Theater. Rather, they are life changing cathartic tears which flow from beyond the tear ducts. They come from the “heart”, the center of the person, the place out of which life changing decisions are made.
Bella opens up the truth of the meaning of this rich word “beauty.” It invites the viewer to choose life, love and solidarity as the highest good. Jose finds beauty through choosing to love again after a tragedy saps him of life.He admits his past, reaches out to another in greater need, and finds redemption when the choice of sacrificial love is made. Nina learns to truly love through her interaction with this once tormented man and his family, and chooses, in the end, to walk the path to her own reawakening, by choosing life and thereby finding beauty, in the face of Bella.
The spousal love of Angelica Aragon and Jaime Terelli, Jose and Manny's parents, and the family they created out of that love, provide the backdrop for all of this. It is a refreshing portrait of the beauty of faithful married love in an age of infidelity. It also affirms the beauty of the Latino culture. Bella received the Legacy Award from the Smithsonian Institute Latino Center for its contributions to Latino culture, and received commendation from Edward James Olmos at the Miami International Film Festival.
This is the first feature film of Alejandro Monteverde, a close friend of Eduardo Verastegui who played Jose. The company they helped to form, Metanoia Films, is an independent film company. Their mission is to create films which promote what is good in life.
With Bella, they have certainly succeeded.
Bella is beautiful.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.