Truly Bella

Bella.jpgTwo young Latino men in a souped-up car, laughing and preening about their good looks and nice clothes ... what do we expect to see next?  A drug deal?  A sexy woman pushed around by macho men?  Maybe a hail of gunfire and spurts of blood on the nice upholstery?

Bella (2006) steps into none of these cliches.  Instead, it drives that flashy car right into a real-life tragedy followed by a beautifully drawn process of real-life redemption.  The debut film of Mexican director Alejandro Monteverde and starring another young Mexican, Eduardo Verastegui, Bella deftly weaves together the fates of a lonely young waitress (Tammy Blanchard) unable to imagine any outcome to her unwanted pregnancy but abortion, and her co-worker (Verastegui) who tries, for reasons of his own, to expand the range of her imagining.

July 12, 2009 7:57 PM |

Categories:

Soundtrax

PRC Pop 

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Remembering Elvis 

The best part of him will never leave the building ...

Beyond Country 

Like all chart categories, "country" is an arbitrary heading under which one finds the ridiculous, the sublime, and everything in between. On the sublime end, a track that I have been listening to over and over for the last six months: Wynnona Judd's version of "She Is His Only Need." The way she sings it, irony is not a color or even a set of contrasting colors; it is iridescence.

Miles the Rock Star? 

Does Miles Davis belong in the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame? Here's my take on his career ...

Essay Contest 

Attention, high school jazz listeners ...

more trax

Me Elsewhere

Edward Hopper 

Painter of light (and darkness) ...

Dissed in Translation 

Here's my best shot at taking Scorcese down a few pegs ...

Henri Rousseau Revisited 

"Henri Rousseau: Jungles in Paris" appeared at the National Gallery of Art in Washington this fall ...

Paul Klee's Art 

Paul Klee was not childish, despite frequent comparisons between his art and that of children...

Our Art Belongs to Dada 

Rent my "Dadioguide" tour of the Dada show (before it moves to MoMA) ...

more picks

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This page contains a single entry by Martha Bayles published on July 12, 2009 7:57 PM.

When the Revolution Is Not Televised was the previous entry in this blog.

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