... to appreciate this film (but good luck finding a copy in the USA.) Reading IMDB's "external reviews" made me a bit ashamed of my fellow countrymen; the 3 "estadosunidenseados" there all panned it, and only a Mexican web site described it as "excepcional." At least the USA reviewer listed in the "newsgroup reviews" had the sense to give it 3 out of 4 stars, and that's about what it deserves. This Mexican Rip van Winkle tale has a lot of guts and a lot of psychological insight. If some viewers feel that leftist journalist Lauro, awakened from a 20-year coma to a very changed world, is a bit one-dimensional, hence unsympathetic, in his central role, perhaps they're just too young to remember how one-dimensional politics and society looked in 1971, the year Lauro is clubbed over the head by PRI thugs while photoing a demonstration that turns into a "police riot" a la Chicago 1968. Beyond that, I find that the scene where Lauro comes to in his hospital bed is very moving, and the exposition of his situation and difficulties afterwards is actually quite plausible. I wound up sympathizing both with Lauro and with his friends and family who are getting increasingly irritated with his failure to adjust to radically changed circumstances. The only complaint I have is that the ending-- the last few minutes-- seems very contrived and implausible. But then again, it is consistent with the Latin American literary tradition of "magical realism." Please excuse my fit of pique, but I don't think you should have to be Latino (I'm not) to understand that other cultures have different cultural practices, and their artistic products call for a certain discretion in judgment.
Review of El bulto
