Love in the Time of Cholera
by Mike Newell
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DVD details
Actor: Benjamin Bratt, Gina Bernard Forbes, Giovanna Mezzogiorno, Javier Bardem, Marcela MarDirector: Mike Newell
Brand: Warner Brothers
Producer: Andrew Molasky
Producer: Brantley M. Dunaway
Producer: Chris Law
Producer: Danny Greenspun
Producer: Dylan Russell
Writer: Gabriel Garc?a M?rquez
Writer: Ronald Harwood
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 139 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2008-03-18
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: New Line Home Video
DVD Reviews of Love in the Time of Cholera
DVD Review: Sweet love story
Summary: 4 Stars
The story opens in a South American city in the 1800s, where young telegraph operator Florentino (Javier Bardem) sees the lovely Fermina and instantly falls in love. Her father forbids it, the two are parted, and the years pass. Fermina meets a sophisticated doctor (Benjamin Bratt) who is more to her father's liking, while Florentino pines away for his lost love, finding solace in the arms of other women.
I haven't read the novel, so I was able to thoroughly enjoy the movie on its own. It is beautifully photographed in Colombia with a multi-national cast. Bardem plays the innocent, lovestruck Florentino so convincingly I could hardly believe he was the sadistic killer in No Country for Old Men. The movie spans 50 years, and he ages well, tugging at our heartstrings the whole time. The same cannot be said of co-star Giovanna Mezzogiorno, however; she plays the teenage Fermina well, but still looks fairly young at the end of the movie and lacks energy and intensity.
The long-distance love story plays out as the city ages, going through cholera epidemics, civil wars, the coming of the automobile, and evolving wardrobe styles. This is quite a lavishly movie with a simple romantic theme; can unrequited love really last 50 years? Highly recommended.
DVD Review: 'Love in the Time of Cholera' (2007) - directed by Mike Newell, written by Oscar winning screenwriter Ronald Harwood
Summary: 2 Stars
"Love in the Time of Cholera" (1985) - is the film based on one of two best novels by the greatest living writer, 1982 Nobel Prize winner in Literature, Colombian Gabriel Garcia Marquez (1928). It depicts many faces of love - romantic, marital, erotic, and unrequited. It is the novel about love that hits like a lightning, takes over the whole human existence, tortures like a deadly disease, and even all-consuming time has no power over it. The story about poor romantic telegraph operator Florentino Arisa's love for beauty Fermina Dasa and his long waiting for her acceptance that lasted fifty one year, nine months and four days is fascinating, interesting and unusual.
I knew the film was not going to be at the same level as the novel. It would be simply impossible. As a matter of fact, I was really surprised that one of two deservingly celebrated novels of the greatest modern writer had been actually adapted to the screen. Marquez's resistance to any offers for adapting this novel and 100 Hundred Years of Solitude has been legendary. Well, someone succeeded in obtaining the rights for Love in Time of Cholera and I am not sure if it is a good or bad thing. I tend to think that it is both. I am sure a lot of viewers who never read the novel would like the movie and perhaps would read the original and explore themselves the world of Magic Realism, the world created by Marquez's exquisite gift for storytelling and bringing to live the unforgettable characters, striking images, and passionate yet melancholic mood. Those who did read the book would have a chance to find out for themselves if Mike Newell's vision of the most romantic story ever told is in any way close to their own. I personally did not want to see the film but I caught it on TV few days ago and I stayed with it to the end credits, and was entertained. I did not like everything I saw but the film has some beautiful parts to it. After all, Newell has made my most favorite romantic movie of all time, Enchanted April (1992). He was masterful in creating charming, enchanting, and heartwarming gem of the film with Enchanted April. Perhaps, it was easier to make a film that took place during one month that had changed the lives of four women and brought hope, love, and joy into their existence. Marquez's novel that spans over fifty years seems to defy the attempts to adequately bring it to the film media. The film looks and sounds wonderful but the fragrance of the most incredible prose, the proverbial Magic that goes so uniquely well together with the Realism in Gabo's works, sadly is missing from the film. I think Marquez himself gives the key to understanding why it is impossible to adapt his prose:
"To him (Florentino) she (Fermina) seemed so beautiful, so seductive, so different from ordinary people,that he could not understand why no one was as disturbed as he by the clicking of her heels on the paving stones, why no one else's heart was wild with the breeze stirred by the sighs of her veils, why everyone did not go mad with the movements of her braid, the flight of her hands, the gold of her laughter. He had not missed a single one of her gestures, not one of the indications of her character, but he did not dare approach her for fear of destroying the spell."
Maybe these words "destroying the spell" are the best explanation why Marquez's books should not been adapted. One of the film's weaknesses (and I intentionally don't want to go and list all of them for there are plenty), is that The Crowned Goddess of the novel as played by Giovanna Mezzogiorno is completely different woman than Fermina as Marquez described her and for whom his own Crowned Goddess, the love of his life, his wife of over fifty years, Mercedes Barcha Pardo, was a prototype. Fermina in the movie is so pale and lifeless that it makes the whole story of Florentiono's undying love for her not very convincing. Take away the Love from the story, and what are you left with? Beautiful scenery, truly great soundtrack, and good actors who either have not much to play, or not knowing exactly what to do with their unusual, magically realistic characters, fail to bring them to life by overplaying them or making them the caricatures.
I think the film is better than all 1 star reviews make you believe but sadly it is not the great work of Art.
2.5/5
DVD Review: Skip this movie
Summary: 1 Stars
This movie was a big let down. I failed to connect with the characters. It's supposed to be a timeless love between 2 people, but that message was never conveyed. The movie was so predictable and most of the scenes were just overdone ( too many unnecessary sex scenes). Ok, we get it the character Florentino was promisciuous.
I think a decent film would have been produced, if they included a narrator, a different set of actors, and edited the unnecessary scenes.
I'm so glad that I borrowed it from the library for free.
DVD Review: Did'nt read the book
Summary: 5 Stars
I for one did'nt read the book,. I loved the movie so much that i can not stop watching it. I love what it is all about and Javier is now one of my favorit actors he is so passion in his work. and the music... I'm speechless. DVD Review: Rightly choleric emotions !
Summary: 1 Stars
I could not make it through. I watched it only for Bardem, but he did not appear soon enough. What we have for the opening is all sorts of horrible makeup effects and terse juvenile colloquy. I had to turn it off. And the actor, the one playing the young Bardem...Gaahhh! It looks as if they even put a fake overpowdered 'Bardem' nose on the boy, who is already afflicted with a somewhat bestial visage. And Giovanna whatever, in her octogenarian makeup. * Pukes *
Description of Love in the Time of Cholera
Based on the bestselling novel by Nobel Prize winning author, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, comes an epic love story that spans a lifetime, set against the breathtaking backdrop of South America during the turn of the century. When a teenage Florentino Ariza sees Fermina Daza for the first time, a spark of youthful infatuation ignites a romance that will carry the two from intoxicating highs to desperate lows over the next 50 years, in the film that dares to ask; How long would you wait for love?There's no reason an Englishman shouldn't take on a landmark in Latin American literature. Four Weddings and a Funeral, after all, proves Mike Newell has a feel for romance. Adapted by The Pianist's Ronald Harwood, Love in the Time of Cholera is an epic vision of true love. For all the talent involved, however, this lush realization of the Gabriel Garc?a M?rquez novel never takes flight. Newell begins with a death before backtracking 50 year to the late-1800s, with Florentino (Unax Ugalde), a poetry-writing telegraph operator living in an unnamed city (the movie was filmed in Cartagena, Columbia) who spots the graceful Fermina (Giovanna Mezzogiorno) while making his rounds, and that's it--he's in love. While Florentino's mother (Central Station's Fernanda Montenegro) encourages the courtship, Fermina's father (John Leguizamo in over-the-top mode) forbids it. Years pass, and the well-born Dr. Urbino (Benjamin Bratt) treats Fermina for a case of cholera. Then, Urbino proposes. Fermina accepts. A distraught Florentino (now played by Javier Bardem) decides to wait. With the help of his uncle (a sprightly Hector Elizondo), he amasses wealth of his own. All the while, he drifts from woman to woman. After five decades of waiting, he gets a second chance to win Fermina's heart, and it's easier said than done. Florentino's journey is absorbing, but Newell's film lacks the passion and complexity of Marquez's prose. The actors give it their all, but Love in the Time of Cholera is more of a pleasant diversion than a life-changing experience. --Kathleen C. Fennessy
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