Here we spend a little time with Ambrose Bierce, an American writer who thrust himself into the Mexican Revolution in hopes of dying dramatically (instead of in some humdrum way, like old age or illness). The movie is best for its depiction of the colorful war veteran/writer, and Gregory Peck plays him well.
"Life is just an awkward first draft," he observes at one point.
And how does the septuagenarian like his women, he's asked. "Sighing."
Yet he also opines, "I like a woman who can make a man laugh."
"They've all gone. They didn't wait," he says of lost loves. "I suppose I didn't inspire enough love in any of them."
He's awfully interesting, and it's a bit of a letdown when we stray to other characters in the dusty terrain.
Jane Fonda plays a schoolteacher with daddy issues who has gone to Chihuahua for a governess job on a hacienda. Unaware that society has been turned upside-down, she finds herself in the midst of appalling violence, barely surviving, yet quickly proceeds to groove with the local peasants, eventually bedding down with rebel bad boy Gen. Arroyo (Jimmy Smits).
It's a whole new world to the wide-eyed city girl, who'd always been "afraid of the unknown." Jane's final scene, crossing a bridge at sunset, is indeed beautiful, and one does feel for the illiterate Arroyo, whose brutal beginnings in life lead to fatal errors in judgment.
The movie includes some lovely atmospherics, including folk music and dance, and some Day of the Dead-type skull mummery. But there is also a shocking scene of violence toward a horse (which I hope was staged and not real). Ironically, Arroyo says early in the film, "The revolution needs horses, not governesses."
I discovered this movie in the book "Vanished! -- Explorers forever lost," which profiles notable people who disappeared.
I hadn't been aware of its director, Argentinian Luis Puenzo. However, I have seen a film by his daughter, Lucia Puenzo, who directed the memorable "XXY" of 2007.
"Life is just an awkward first draft," he observes at one point.
And how does the septuagenarian like his women, he's asked. "Sighing."
Yet he also opines, "I like a woman who can make a man laugh."
"They've all gone. They didn't wait," he says of lost loves. "I suppose I didn't inspire enough love in any of them."
He's awfully interesting, and it's a bit of a letdown when we stray to other characters in the dusty terrain.
Jane Fonda plays a schoolteacher with daddy issues who has gone to Chihuahua for a governess job on a hacienda. Unaware that society has been turned upside-down, she finds herself in the midst of appalling violence, barely surviving, yet quickly proceeds to groove with the local peasants, eventually bedding down with rebel bad boy Gen. Arroyo (Jimmy Smits).
It's a whole new world to the wide-eyed city girl, who'd always been "afraid of the unknown." Jane's final scene, crossing a bridge at sunset, is indeed beautiful, and one does feel for the illiterate Arroyo, whose brutal beginnings in life lead to fatal errors in judgment.
The movie includes some lovely atmospherics, including folk music and dance, and some Day of the Dead-type skull mummery. But there is also a shocking scene of violence toward a horse (which I hope was staged and not real). Ironically, Arroyo says early in the film, "The revolution needs horses, not governesses."
I discovered this movie in the book "Vanished! -- Explorers forever lost," which profiles notable people who disappeared.
I hadn't been aware of its director, Argentinian Luis Puenzo. However, I have seen a film by his daughter, Lucia Puenzo, who directed the memorable "XXY" of 2007.
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