The time of the film is 1913, when the American frontier was closing fast
Mexico, on the other hand, was still in a romantic era, the time of Pancho Villa and the Mexican Revolution
Luis Puenzo presented the violent scenes passionately and it is his passion that makes the picture interesting
His use of slow motion to prolong dying remembered me the great Sam Peckinpah in his great Western "The Wild Bunch."
The film begins with Harriet Winslow (Jane Fonda), a repressed American spinster caught in the middle of the Mexican Revolution, when Pancho Villa's revolutionary army was moving against important families in Mexico, declaring them enemies of the Revolution and confiscating all their property
The state of Chihuahua was in that moment revolutionary country, and Winslow was seen heading to the Miranda hacienda controlled by Federales
At first, Harriet (who accepted a job as a governess) saw herself caught in a shoot-out and asked for help to return to the border but later on, she starts to see that something in her face has begun to open Her clear blue eyes were sweeter than before And since she never felt in love for being always afraid of the unknown, it was here where her life begins, in a land where death was not the end, but only the beginning
Jimmy Smits had his moments when he told our heroine that the battles have made him general The land that he fought for and the people he has killed, starting with the old landowner who raped his mother and made him a bastard His mother was an Indian peasant while his father was a rich aristocrat This wasn't just his history It was the history of everybody in Mexico
Peck does a fine job in his touching portrait of the intolerable gringo old enough to be an observer He had dared to say farewell to a world, where he wrote every day of his life without exception He wrote when his youth drifted by, and while love betrayed him Ambrose Bierce grows fond of the young general, considering him too much like him, capable of fighting for words written on pieces of paper In an especially poignant scene, his best moments come long before the end, when not knowing if this might perhaps be Harriet's ' first time' he requested that she participates with him in what will undoubtedly be his 'last time '
"Old Gringo" depicts the Mexican music, life of the Mexican people, their special cult to the death, their drunken fiesta, their cheerful whores trading sex for books, the faces of the children, sometimes observers, sometimes participating in the whole twisted ethic of violence
There is some nice cinematography in the film, and the Mexican countryside is well taken Most of the film's action takes place in a fine hacienda
The film begins with Harriet Winslow (Jane Fonda), a repressed American spinster caught in the middle of the Mexican Revolution, when Pancho Villa's revolutionary army was moving against important families in Mexico, declaring them enemies of the Revolution and confiscating all their property
The state of Chihuahua was in that moment revolutionary country, and Winslow was seen heading to the Miranda hacienda controlled by Federales
At first, Harriet (who accepted a job as a governess) saw herself caught in a shoot-out and asked for help to return to the border but later on, she starts to see that something in her face has begun to open Her clear blue eyes were sweeter than before And since she never felt in love for being always afraid of the unknown, it was here where her life begins, in a land where death was not the end, but only the beginning
Jimmy Smits had his moments when he told our heroine that the battles have made him general The land that he fought for and the people he has killed, starting with the old landowner who raped his mother and made him a bastard His mother was an Indian peasant while his father was a rich aristocrat This wasn't just his history It was the history of everybody in Mexico
Peck does a fine job in his touching portrait of the intolerable gringo old enough to be an observer He had dared to say farewell to a world, where he wrote every day of his life without exception He wrote when his youth drifted by, and while love betrayed him Ambrose Bierce grows fond of the young general, considering him too much like him, capable of fighting for words written on pieces of paper In an especially poignant scene, his best moments come long before the end, when not knowing if this might perhaps be Harriet's ' first time' he requested that she participates with him in what will undoubtedly be his 'last time '
"Old Gringo" depicts the Mexican music, life of the Mexican people, their special cult to the death, their drunken fiesta, their cheerful whores trading sex for books, the faces of the children, sometimes observers, sometimes participating in the whole twisted ethic of violence
There is some nice cinematography in the film, and the Mexican countryside is well taken Most of the film's action takes place in a fine hacienda