# Santitos (1997)

### reviewed by
Frankie Paiva

    SANTITOS   * *

    Director: Alejandro Springall
    Writer: Maria Amparo Escandon
    Cast: Dolores Heredia, Pedro Altamirano, Demian Bichir
    Rated R, 105 minutes

Watching Santitos is an uncomfortable experience because it is actually two radically different movies melded together. On one hand, it plays as a weepy drama about a mother losing her child, and her eventual recuperation. On the other, it is a Spanish Ealing comedy that comes complete with wrestling and prostitution elements. The big coincidence is that both films feature the same actors, and the screenplays written by the same writer. The director is identical as well. Separately, the duo might make for interesting shorts, but together they are a clunky mess that lumbers from start to finish.

Esperanza (Heredia) loses her only daughter, Blanca, to an unusual fatal virus. Doctors demand the teenage girl's body be sealed forever so the disease doesn't spread. After Blanca's death, Esperanza goes into a state of shock. She believes that her child isn't dead at all because Saint Jude appears to her in a dirty oven window and tells her so. This leads her to wonder, what if the doctors are lying? She never did see the body. Some way or another, this incoming information leads Esperanza into believing her daughter got kidnapped by men, who sold Blanca into prostitution in Tijuana. So she follows the supposed path of her daughter's travels. In desperation, Esperanza becomes a prostitute herself while continuing her adventure of hope. By the time she reaches Los Angeles to search, the film's ending becomes quite apparent.

Although made in 1997, the plot for this movie sounds suspiciously like that of Nurse Betty's. A woman's only loved one dies, and her shock leads her to do outrageous things. It recalls major portions of several movies from the past few months. That this film was the inspiration for all of them is highly doubtful.

The unevenness starts with the script. A bunch of great, but unrelated story ideas make up the screenplay, and many of the scenes are very funny. It's not so much the dialogue that's the problem. It's more like the sequence of events. Character development is too sporadic, which is the same problem with the cinematography. Too many elements just appear to move the movie along. Esperanza just happens to pass by a wall with a colorful mural of the Virgin Mary on it. The benches of her hometown are, naturally, always perfectly color-coordinated. Late into the film, we also discover that Esperanza has a passion for wrestling. Who knew?

Editing is the next problem. This film is in Spanish, yet director Alejandro Springall choose an editor that didn't speak a word of the language. Not a good idea because this movie relies on moving from location to location with ease. Instead, the journey between locales is rocky.

All of this is really a shame since Dolores Heredia gives such a good lead performance. She runs between every base the script requires her to cover with grace and skill. The fish out of water stuff that's common in small British comedies doesn't work for this movie, but she almost makes it work. Screenwriter Maria Amparo Escandon just can't stop. She has to ruin her main character, and the movie's sweetness by placing Esperanza in highly sexual and violent situations. An old brothel owner, whose gender is unidentifiable, is supposedly prime comic fodder. Just wait and see what he or she does in the room he or she forbids everyone in the joint from visiting.

The final moments reveal a truly horrifying portion of this movie. Male guests can watch Esperanza changing and preparing herself through a camera in a Los Angeles brothel. The owner claims the invasion of privacy turns customers on. The Big Brother-esque moment gives the only truly genuine feeling in the film.

This is a rare foreign movie in that you can tune it out easily, with little confusion about what's happening when you return. A sometimes hilarious film that's too disjointed for actual enjoyment, Santitos sours with an aftertaste of falsity and silliness.

    A film review by Frankie Paiva.
    Copyright 2000 Frankie Paiva.

See more of my reviews at http://homestead.com/cinemaparadise/mainpage.html

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