Portrait of Teresa - Movie Review Example

Prof: Raymond Telles CS 135A Mid Term Fall Film Review The Pastor Vega directed ‘Portrait of Teresa’ gives a vivid account of an average Cuban woman who struggles amidst the irresistible stress of workplace and family life. Daisy Granados starred Teresa resembles the contemporary Cuban women who make inadequately pathetic attempts to bring forth reasonable social changes in their living conditions. The 1979 film as a whole maintains relaxed and authentic scenes most of which take the audience throughout the worksites of Teresa and her husband Ramon (Adolfo Llaurado) with intent to allow enough scrutiny of Cuban society. Strong and likable Teresa is active in friendship and involves in almost every matter associated with workplace or family; and her sharp temper sometimes pulls her into mild conflict with Ramon. Teresa depicts the facet of the entire Cuban women who bear the overburden of household responsibilities and external jobs simultaneously. The blend of psychoanalytical experiments in the film is an actual reminder of the chaos, insecurity, and the stereotypical gender roles all which perturb an average Cuban women’s inner soul. Though not a great film making what stands the veteran director Vega out with the presentation of this film is the systematic arrangement of psychoanalysis of the Cuban woman in terms of her resistive trials for becoming an iconic symbol of feministic triumph. Teresa’s obsession with freedom is attributed to the social challenges she had to encounter throughout her early young ages. The viewers’ intellect in their search to find what exactly happens with Cuban women in regard to reality and expectations of life is strategically answered in this film. The application of Ramon’s easy-going identity is an embossing example of the director’s experimental trial of story telling. The specific areas of gender based altercations encountered in the film feature the importance of a prevailing influence of the issue among the women of Cuban society. The 1954 controversial film ‘Salt of the Earth’ also deals with the women’s involvement and outlook in social and political issues. The real life centered movie tells the story of a strike led by Mexican-American miners in which the heroine Esperanza Quintero (Rosaura Revueltas), a pregnant lady turns to be the leading figure of the entire scenes. The Mexican-American miners under the leadership of Ramon (Juan Chacon) demand that they should be provided with the equal safety standards that the Anglo workers enjoy. His wife Esperanza reflexes the traditional inferior women of the era who was ironically deprived of her equal rights with her husband at home. However, as the story develops her words becomes the driving force for the strikers in their pursuit to civil rights. The historical context of the film also has to be taken into consideration while evaluating the dimensions of its objectives. The post-World War II developments and cold war between the U.S and the Soviet Union was the most influential factor behind the controversy of the film. The communist support to the movie was skeptical as it was counted as subversive movement to overthrow democracy and capitalism. The miners fight against the company was interpreted as the communist approach to the entire United States which subsequently led the movie makers to be blacklisted. As compared to Teresa of the Portrait of Teresa, Esperanza is rather reluctant to take her own stance. “Portraits of Teresa exposes all the contradictions of sexual politics in Cuba”. (Carson, Dittmar, and Welsch 314). Although both Teresa and Esperanza carry the symptoms of prevailing female subjugation and they forecast the subsequent social outburst, Teresa is unique for her voluntary involvement in social concerns. However, the Salt of the Earth being the only blacklisted film in the US history became “the cult favorite as it is a precursor of modern feminism and an example of American neorealism” (Monaco, in Biberman 10). There is a strong reference of situational leadership that was practically demanded by a group in the old movie Salt of the Earth. The film is a real narration of the life of American working class. The plot of the movie goes in the line as it progress with women’s emergence to the frontier of the strike at the mine. Essentially, their final point of direction goes to realistic presentation of everything concerned in the movie. As a comparative study, the movie, Salt of the Earth had incorporated the efforts of real life workers when compared to other lately entered or contemporary movies. This seems to be the impact of modern technologies that changed the vision of directors at making realities with improved attempts over the years. Moreover, the directors seem to have felt the importance of passing the message of anti racism and communal harmony prominent over the magnitude by which the movie was shot. While both these films say the same story of oppression, the change in time and demography brings a different effect to the viewer; and that makes the definition of cinematography. Both movies have themes showing the miseries of working class women who leave their personal interests for attaining a more independent life. However it adds to their miseries when they fall in clash with their husbands. Apparently, Teresa’s love and concern to her family often leads to an open domestic war; whereas, Esperanza is exceedingly passive which turns the momentum of the whole theme in Salt of the Earth. While the director lets Teresa take her own stance in social life she breaks the conventional norms of women’s role in Cuban society. It turns the story to the real message of the movie that is the inevitable protest of the working class women against the prevailing social injustice and domestic hardships. Whereas, Esperanza in the Salt of Earth is comparatively passive to her socio-environmental developments until it becomes her turn explicitly. The effect of forcing resistance into women is surely for the finest flow; and moreover, the association of love and pain to the theme is carefully twisted by the director for the best effect of reinforcing the demand for a ‘war-for- peace’ approach in the movie. Imaginative frames of the director worked well with the narration of the story by inflicting love and action as an equal mix in the movie. The character of Teresa in this movie reflects how a traditional woman could use her revolutionary values at the contrasting living conditions. She is simultaneously obliged to domestic and public concerns. The director has succeeded to show the impact of family constraints and stereotypical gender convictions on women’s consciousness. According to Teresa’s mother “Women are women and men are men … and even Fidel can’t change it”. Her words speak out the traditional women’s outlook to social life. However, Teresa would go beyond the limits of the so called barriers to prove that she has her own role in determining the social changes. The film makers through Teresa-Ramon relationship and her multiple responsibilities point out Cuba’s general issue of gender discrimination. Teresa’s character is really an effective voice against the workplace inequality, women subjugation, and domestic oppression. The film not only invites our conscious to the problems of overburdened women but also to the impact of U.S. intervention to their mother land. Almost in the same way, Esperanza portrays how woman can reconcile heroic activity and public or domestic demands. This is what happens in the film as miners’ wives take major roles opening the way for a female lead rural community to accomplish their dream of equal justice. Not only the character of Esperanza, but women in the film as a whole declares the feministic idea that women are equal to men. The film begins with Esperanza’s comment on the town and on her own identity that purposefully demonstrates what the working class women would like to say about them and about the society they live in. The occasional conflict between Esperanza and Ramon also points out the contrasting behaviors men demonstrate in public and in private. There are several carefully drafted conversations that show what women wanted to speak to the world. For instance, Esperanza says “I want to rise and push everything up with me as I go”. What she speaks to Ramon is really mind storming as it conveys the voice of an enlightened gender group; “Never strike me again-that was the old way. Sleep where you please but not with me.” Irrespective of the controversy, the revolutionary film ‘Salt of the Earth’ remains unique for its optimistic outlook and particularly unusual significance of its women characters. It really spoke to the world of their right to survive; “you want to go down fighting”, I don’t want to go down fighting, I want to win”. The film has brought all domestic works including child care and cooking into the frontier of political concerns. Obviously, the film ‘Portrait of Teresa’ also is outstanding for its way of narrating Cuban life and social issues. Theresa is the real portrait of all Cuban women who are oppressed to suffer domestic and external burdens alike. Works Cited Biberman, Herbert and Biberman, Sonaj D. Salt of the Earth: The Story of a Film. (50th Edition). U.S: UNET 2 Corporation, 2003. Print. Carson, Diane. Dittmar, Linda and Welsch, Janice R. (Eds). Multiple Voices in Feminist Film Criticism. U.S: University of Minnesota Press, 1994. 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