Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		4.0

Like Water for Chocolate Blu-ray Movie Review

Three course meal or three ring circus?

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman August 20, 2014

1963 audiences were titillated as well as perhaps a bit shocked by a now legendary scene in Tony Richardson’s film of Henry Fielding’s rambunctious novel Tom Jones. Tom, a bit of a rake and (maybe unintentional) womanizer, met an older female who might actually have been his birth mother. The two share a memorable meal where everything they stuff into their lascivious mouths seems to be shorthand for sex. Though it’s played mostly for laughs, there’s a bit of a salacious subtext by dint of the fact that the two might be related. But it’s the scene’s ebullient sexuality that is probably most remembered to this day. Those who want something of that same recipe, only expanded to fill an entire feature film, might get their fill with Like Water for Chocolate, a film that appeared almost three decades after Tom Jones, but which shares a similar lustiness, albeit perhaps not one quite so ribald as the Fielding work. In fact, Like Water for Chocolate is at its core a story of sublimated passion, where food doesn’t serve as a symbol of sexual desire, it actually takes the place of it. Based on Laura Esquivel's best selling 1989 novel, the film was directed by Esquivel’s then husband Alfonso Arau. Esquivel was trafficking in so-called “magical realism”, a literary conceit that is difficult if not impossible to translate effectively to the screen, but Arau manages to invest the film with at least a little cinematic sleight of hand, even if the “realism” part is often a question of degree. In fact, Like Water for Chocolate almost plays like a bedtime story (no irony intended, considering the sexual aspects) for grown ups, a fable of sorts about true love and delicious food and everything that comes between both.

Esquivel’s original novel also contained a structural artifice to go along with its magical realism stylistic gambit. Separated into monthly chapters (albeit months which span the course of several years) and full of supposedly authentic recipes, Esquivel was able to make several overt connections in her novel which can only be hinted at in her screenplay. The film is bookended by segments featuring a young woman who introduces us to the story of her great-aunt Tita (Lumi Cavazos). Tita’s birth is attended by an almost Biblical flood from her mother, just the beginning of many allusions to overflowing tears.

In one of the story’s plot machinations which simply need to be accepted (much like in any good fairy tale), Tita comes from a family which has a longstanding tradition that the youngest born daughter must never marry and instead devote herself to caring for her parents in their old age. Since a shocking if morbidly humorous vignette has already shown the demise of Tita’s father (when he finds out one of his other daughters might not be his), and so Tita’s future task will only involve her mother, Mama Elena (Regina Torné). Elena seems to have a modicum of gentleness well buried beneath a harridan exterior, but she is not about to take any guff from Tita when Tita hints that she and local boy Pedro (Marco Leonardi) have fallen in love. Elena simply offers her other daughter Rosaura (Yareli Arizmendi) to Pedro instead, and Tita is devastated when Pedro accepts the offer. Pedro later confesses to Tita that he did so only to be able to stay close to Tita herself.

That sets up the central dialectic of the story, where Tita becomes the family cook and housekeeper for a household including her mother, Pedro and Rosaura. Tita becomes aware that she is able to invest her feelings directly into her cooking, a revelation that is first realized with Pedro and Rosaura’s wedding cake, which causes everyone who eats it to break into uncontrollable weeping as they ruminate about their life’s true love. But this is also the first place in the film where it’s clear that Esquivel’s magical realism hasn’t quite made the transition to the screen. In a book, a description can enter the reader’s consciousness, where it can germinate organically within the confines of the imagination. Arau has no such technique available to him as a filmmaker, and instead we’re shown inevitably literal translations of the ideas, with Tita’s tears falling into the cake batter, and then the wedding party descending into abject weeping.

The problem here is that, unlike a traditional fairy tale where there might be something like an enchanted princess or the like, Tita is caught in a kind of squalid emotional environment that is perhaps too tawdry to support the more fanciful aspects of the story. Unrequited (or at least unconsummated) love is a potent force, of course, and Like Water for Chocolate neatly exploits the angst-filled longing of two souls to be together when the fates seem intent on keeping them apart. Other parts of the story, like a third sister (whose supposed illegitimacy caused the death of Tita’s father) who is abducted by a revolutionary and who returns as a kind of bandit queen activist herself, are more overtly whimsical and therefore perhaps less problematic in terms of their presentation.

Ultimately the sheer emotional force of Tita’s story manages to make Like Water for Chocolate a largely winning recipe. Arau offers gorgeous pastoral vistas that contrast nicely with the characters’ roiling inner lives, and the performances, especially by Cavazos who is both luminous and gritty, are exceptional. The story never quite attains the lofty heights of the best soufflé (or whatever the Mexican equivalent of that might be), but it manages to be both filling and tasty within the rather odd parameters of its fable like setting.

Like Water for Chocolate Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Like Water for Chocolate is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. Lionsgate's press materials tout "beautifully restored picture and color" as well as "a revamped audio mix", though it's unclear if this domestic release is sourced off a different master than the many foreign Blu-rays of this title that have appeared over the past year or so. One way or the other, the color here is undeniably exceptional, capturing Arau's fluent use of ambers, golds, purples and oranges. Arau and his DPs Steven Bernstein and Emmanuel Lubezki prefer a slightly gauzy, diffuse approach here, so very little in this film is sharp by contemporary standards, and even clarity is a bit less than stellar at times. The biggest issue here for some viewers is going to be the very heavy grainfield. It's almost always noticeable, and when it spikes during darker sequences it may prove to be at least a minor distraction for some. There are no real problems with the elements here, and no signs of aggressive digital tweaking. Contrast is strong and steady, and Like Water for Chocolate looks organic, if very grainy, on Blu-ray.

Like Water for Chocolate Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Like Water for Chocolate "revamped" audio consists of a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix in the original Spanish language. While not incredibly immersive, the surround track does place ambient environmental effects throughout the soundstage, and it also nicely opens up Leo Brouwer's colorful score. Dialogue still tends to be anchored front and center (along with the occasional voiceover). Fidelity is fine here, with no issues whatsoever to cause any worry.

Like Water for Chocolate Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Audio Commentary by Director Alfonso Arau with Actors Lumi Cavazos and Marco Leonardi is in Spanish (and maybe a little Italian) with English subtitles. It sounds like this was recorded relatively recently (they talk about the 23rd anniversary of the film, which would seem to indicate 2015, but perhaps they mean when they were filming) and is a loving reminiscence that tends to meander now and then but is quite a good listen.


• Theatrical Trailer (1080p; 1:21)

Like Water for Chocolate Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

If Tom Jones' famous banquet scene was all about the eating, Like Water for Chocolate is much more about the cooking. Both films exploit an understandable metaphor here, but Like Water for Chocolate struggles at times to maintain Esquivel's magical realism stance. What works well in this film is the tug of emotions, especially as lives wander through years of isolation and frustration. The cast is marvelous, and Arau creates a very scenic tour of old world Mexico (and beyond). There's an ineffable sadness to much of this film, but also a sense of triumph as well. Grain haters would be well advised to steer clear of this release. For others, Like Water for Chocolate comes Recommended.