Zapata - El sueño del héroe

I saw this movie last Friday here in Mexico. First of all Alejandro Fernandez is a SINGER not an ACTOR. In my school years when i was studying History of Mexico all the books showed Zapata as a stronger and rude man and in this movie Alejandro Fernandez is too far from that. I had some funny moments like the dance of the witches (Oh my god, what was that?), when I saw that Zapata had magical powers over the horses and the fake explicit scene when Zapata was falling from a mountain.

So if you are curious or really want to see this movie wait until it comes in DVD or Video so you wont waste money.

So i give -1/5

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 a little understanding of what happened to this movie, having been hired as the VFX supervisor, but not completing any of the visual effects. This was originally a Canadian / Mexican co-production, with a smaller percentage of investment supposed to come from Canada, and certain crew (editor, sound dept., visual effects) being supplied by Canadian companies. When I arrived on set there were already problems both with budget overrun and also, I understand, with funds being transferred from Canada. I completed supervising the 'raw plates' on location, but not a single frame ended up going to the original post production house that hired me. There was some beautiful footage shot by Vittorio Storraro, but already before I left some disagreement between Alfonso Arau and the Canadian editor, over the cutting style. The editor left soon after me. I later heard a rumour that the negative was held up at the lab in L.A. over unpaid invoices. I have never seen the 'finished' movie but I can speculate that there was a desperate scramble to put this film together in some way at least for a DVD release. The investors must have been screaming for a way to return some of their capital.

So please don't be quite so hard on this movie. It is basically unfinished. I cannot comment on acting, direction and other aspects that I have not seen, but some of the scenes which I saw uncut in Mexico had more promise than was realized. Jeery Andrews VFX Supervisor (shoot only!)

That's what this "movie" is.

I can't even start explaining on details of what's wrong about this piece of crap, it is everything.

It made me laugh at some point, but it was sorrow laughter, but the worst of all is the screenplay, miscasting and directing.

Dumb fiction characters and weak based on real life character. You just can't respect a director such as Arau that the only thing he did on pre-production and therefore was going along where the wind blew.

You just can't have any kind of respect, avoid it at any cost...

what a shame...

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