Review of Like Water for Chocolate (1992) by Michael P — 23 Jul 2007

There have been a few great films that link those fundamentally human appetites: food and love. I had seen Tampopo and Eat Drink Man Woman before, but this is my first time watching Like Water For Chocolate, which brings a decidedly Latin flair to the whole affair.

These films all tend to center around the sublimation of love through the use of food, communicating that which, for some reason or other, cannot be said aloud. Whether it be the cooking of an old Chinese chef, or a small-time Japanese ramen cook, food comes to be quite an effective vehicle for such messages. I suppose that is why we have a love for our mothers' cooking, made with love, and why with the modern destruction of the evening meal together as a family, the bonds which hold nuclear families together have been weakening.

But I digress. What Like Water For Chocolate adds to the mix is a decidedly Márquez-esque vibe, a certain mystical reality that is at once obviously fabricated and yet entirely believable. Perhaps it's a quality shared by many Latin American films and stories. Actually, the plot of the film reminded me quite directly of Love in The Time of Cholera, a Márquez novel I had just read.

The story involves a family of three sisters and their mother. The mother, her husband having died, declares that her youngest daughter Tita will never marry but instead will care for her until the day she dies, a fact which frustrates a young love, forcing Tita to express her affection through the only avenue left to her.

While I can't say much for the moral character of the story, I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed the film.