Zapata - El sueño del héroe

This Film betrays the very cause that is supposed to honor.

When I saw Alfonso Arau's "Zapata" I expected a film that may not only expose the American natives as a great, noble and highly organized and intellectual cultures, specially the Aztec Empire, but also to bring the well deserved pride to this humiliated, discriminated people in Latin America.

Instead what I saw is a disrespectful MOCK of the accounts of the history, in short:

-Zapata (Fernandez) denies every time he is a leader, a liberator, he is actually annoyed when he is asked for guide from his devoted followers, seems that he got stuck in that position for pure luck.

-Zapata (Fernandez) doesn't in any point of the movie prove that indeed he is a leader or that he deserves that title.

-Zapata's brother dies in this film in the vilest situation, a betrayal, having sex with the wife of a fellow Indian. Any honorable Aztec man knew that this sole act in the Aztec law will get death as punishment.

-Zapata in this movie claims that his struggle is to defend their traditions, self-respect, history, beliefs and way of life but several times in the film he leaves his Indian wife to go after the beautiful blonde European mistress, betraying the very own cause he is fighting for, is this the leader his people deserve?

-A witch, (sometimes naked) keeps appearing in his dreams, I believe she is some kind of guide in Zapata's life, how come she never told him that he was going to be lied by the enemy and killed in the lamest way?

I can easily keep writing about how bad this film is, but I will need about four hours for that, basically the time it took to write the screenplay of "Zapata, El Sueno del Heroe", (Sad, very Sad)

LPortillo

How do you turn a man into a myth? Or worse yet, how do you make 2 hours of pretty terrible viewing? The answer would be this sad attempt at the retelling of one of Mexico's greatest heros. For starters, Alejandro Fernandez doesn't look anything like Emiliano Zapata--he's way too white. And Fernandez looks more like a Mexicano Clive Owen, which was somewhat distracting. The scenes jump with no ryhme or reason as the movie tries to follow the trajectory of Zapata's life. Unless you are completely familiar with the Diaz dictatorship and the land struggles and revolution in Mexico in the early 20th century, you're gonna be completely lost. The film vacillates between grand epic and art film. Zapata/Fernandez is guided by three wise women whose presence in the movie is distracting and just downright goofy. The previous reviewer made mention of several present day Mexican stars who have cameos, including Lucero as Zapata's upper-crust lover(!). I did enjoy the scene where Zapata meets Villa, which re-enacts the famous photograph of the two revolutionary leaders. You do get a sense of the larger than life character that Villa was. However, that short scene is not enough to make up for all the tedious scenes that came before. Really, this movie stinks and doesn't do justice to the memory of a great man who helped led the peasant revolt in Mexico.

I have seen this Spanish language film which focuses on the famed Mexican revolutionary, Emilano Zapata. My knowledge about it's hero and the revolution is extensive. Also, I recall Elia Kazan's biopic of Zapata, which starred Marlon Brando. It is not difficult to follow the story. 14 of the 16 comments (so far) are singularly disappointing, making me wonder if they saw the same movie. The 14 negatives are vile, cowardly attempts to assassinate Arau's movie and his talents. So cowardly, in fact, they don't dare sign their real names.

I found the film engrossing, beautifully photographed by Victorio Storaro and masterfully directed by Arau -- one of the few truly great filmmaker's of our time. He isn't interested to portray car crashes, sadism, murders and allied subject matter.

He is a very humane man -- who is able to invest that humanity in his films. They have great charm, a quality which has virtually disappeared from movies. (See his: "Like Water For Chocolate", "A Walk In The Clouds",etc.)

For me, Arau is the Vittorio De Sica of modern film-making and we are indeed fortunate he is still making films.

Robert Dorff

After so many negative comments, I didn't expect much from Arau´s Zapata besides beautiful cinematography. I went to see it with the curiosity to see why it generates so much criticism.

I was surprised that I liked and enjoyed parts of the movie. I disagree with the people that say it was a waste of time, I didn't think that it was the worst movie I have seen (like some others in imdb comments have said) - there are so many movies worse than this one in México. Jaime Camil was interesting as Eufemio, maybe a little more than Alejandro Fernandez as Emiliano, but I don't think that was all his fault. Jesus Ochoa was good as Huerta, but I think the villain is usually interesting and stands out in movies any ways. I think the script could have been more interesting but it seemed that the film was badly chopped and jumped from one scene to the next in the first half in particular, like we didn't really see what it was supposed to be. Some of the special effects were fine, the explosions and rain of petals was interesting but the CG in some cases were disappointing, for the chamana and the final of the film were from twenty years ago or more.

Maybe it was good that I saw it with low expectations - overall I liked it more than I thought I would but I would have liked to see more depth and explanation. As a mexican I understand what it was planned to be about, I wanted it to be good, to explain about our hero and I liked the mystical idea but some things were missing that I thought could have made it better. Now that I have seen the movie, I wish they would go back and fix it, make a better edition, add some flavor. It was like going to a dinner where the food looks so good but doesn't satisfy you. I hope someone makes a better one.

I know some persons will say nothing can help the film and don't like it anyway. Other people in the theater with me said they like most of the film, but didn't like the poor visual quality of the ending scene.

I don't blame the actors or crew, but the director or editors under his direction I imagine or whoever damaged a good idea. I think a good director should see the obvious faults in the film and fix them before it is released.

Being totally sincere I spected this movie to be not good, but never thought it was possible to be as terribly bad as it is.

Based (Is it?) on the life of Mexican hero Emiliano Zapata, the screenplay is a mess. This historic character was maybe the Revolution hero with more social impact, maybe also the only one with true ideals, and actions. But you can see nothing about this in this movie, Instead of that the movie uses all the time to say just that he was the "chosen one" never even trying to figure why. Too much has been said about the inclusion of the Mexican singer Alejandro Fernandez in the main role, and blaming him of all the weakness in the character. I think that this conception is really wrong, cause being not an actor Mr. Fernandez took the responsibility of his character, and studied acting, and Nahuatl (Being the only one who seems fluent in his speaking) and made a big effort that made a good shape for the hero, but even the best actor in the world would be incompetent to fill a character that in this story and screenplay, haves nothing in its soul.

The photography by renowned photographer Vittorio Storaro is really beautiful, but ruined by the editing and shameful visual effects. The Set design and costumes are great. The musical score is a full mess, and the main love theme is a perfect copy of: Don't cry for me Argentina.

Meaning all this I have said that the movie haves a lot of good effort by cast and crew, but being the leadership by Arau an empty mess, with not a hint of creativity, all this effort is a complete waste and a shame of movie.