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Laura Esquivel & Alfonso Arau _____
Mexico
High romance, spiced with a few traditional Mexican recipes, was the ingredient that made Laura Esquivel's first novel, Like Water for Chocolate (Como agua para chocolate), an international phenomenon when it was simultaneously released as both a book and a movie in the U.S. in 1993. Originally published in 1990, the book has been translated into thirty languages and there are over three million copies in print worldwide. A former schoolteacher and screenwriter, Esquivel wrote the screenplay for the film, which was directed by her husband, Mexican director Alfonso Arau. After the remarkable success of the film-which, was one of the highest-grossing foreign films of all time-her 12-year marriage and professional collaboration with Arau fell apart and she sued him in New York's State Supreme Court for allegedly reneging on a promise to pay her 5 percent of the film's net profits. She has since met and married a man she calls her own Twin Soul, a dentist named Javier Valdez. They live together in Mexico City, where she is finishing a children's book and beginning another novel (The Law of Love).
(Salon/Random House) The Law of Love, which is packaged with a CD of Mexican music you are supposed to play while reading the novel, was ridiculed by many critics. One described it as "the worst book I ever read." Words like "drivel," "it stinks," and "hollow" were used by readers who filed reviews on Amazon.com.
Alfonso Arau is a multi-talented Mexican artist who began as a dancer before turning to acting and eventually writing, directing and producing motion pictures. He played somewhat stereotypical characters in Hollywood films (e.g., Sam Peckinpah's landmark Western The Wild Bunch. Subsequently, the thin, handsome and often mustached Arau alternated between acting assignments in the US and producing, directing, writing and starring in his own projects in Mexico. Arau's better known acting credits include Posse, Romancing the Stone and Three Amigos. Recent directing projects included A Walk in the Clouds and a bizarre dark comedy called Picking Up the Pieces, starring Woody Allen and Sharon Stone. (hollywood.com).
Dennard, Mackenzie E. "The Encrypted Recipes in Like Water for Chocolate. University of Idaho. 1999. One the better essays written about the film, which discusses the symbolism behind the food and recipes. Written by a student. Smith, Joan. "Love and Other Illegal Acts." Salon Magazine. 28 October 1996. Interview with Laura Esquivel, in which she discusses her rather syrupy and (in the admittedly biased opinion of your professor) shallow view of life. Engelbert, Jo Anne. "Image and Identity: Representations of Latin American Women in Film and Fiction." www.curbstone.org. 27 October 2007 (http://www.curbstone.org/index.cfm?webpage=28)
OTHER ARTICLES:
Dobrian, Susan Lucas. "Romancing the Cook: Parodic Consumption of Popular Romance Myths
in Como Agua Para Chocolate." Latin American Literary Review. 24.48 (1996): 56-66.
Ibsen, Kristine. "On Recipes, Reading and Revolution: Postboon Parody in Como Agua Para Chocolate." Hispanic Review. 25 (1996): 133-146. |
