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EL NINO Y LA NIEBLA aka THE BOY AND THE FOG (1953):
A Mexican housewife has an unhealthy preoccupation w/ her adolescent son... not really sexual, just borderline obsessive about monitoring and managing his every movement. Her hard-working husband is kind and patient but he just can't seem to get an ounce of warmth or affection outta' the broad. She also can't seem to get over the studly dude that wanted to marry her many years earlier (who, of course, is now involved w/ the husband's business). Apparently the wife has some kind of family predisposition to mental illness (...shocker!

) and part of her obsession w/ the son arises from her fear that he too will inherit her issues. Frankly the son seems just fine for the most part, besides having bad dreams and talking in his sleep... and, of course, dealing w/ his nutso mother.

THE BOY AND THE FOG has almost unanimously glowing reviews on Letterboxd and writer/director Roberto Galvaldon is sometimes called Mexico's greatest director, but I've seen much better Mexican films than this and even if you've only seen an El Santo flick... so have you!

I don't mind action/horror flicks being dumb or cheap, but making a Serious Drama requires you to actually handle your material w/ a steady, thoughtful, persuasive hand - and if you don't, you've totally blown it. (See my distasteful thoughts on Daldry's THE HOURS.) On a Spinal Tap amp scale of 0 to 11, the routine domestic scenes in BOY AND THE FOG (not even the melodramatic bits) are turned to about a 7 or 8. In scenes where she must respond to her son wanting to take a walk on the beach, the lead actress responds like her kitchen is on fire. I assume that this is what all Telemundo soaps are like?

What bugs me the most about TBATF, though, is how it compounds the female character's toxic stigma about mental illness. This is different than what we see in IL DEMONIO (which is a critical portrayal of how a narrowminded community perceives chemical imbalance or emotional stability) or Zulawski's POSSESSION, which employs the imagery of demonic possession as a metaphor for erratic/inexplicable female behavior (among other things). The closing scenes of TBATF allow a couple of the male characters to engage in solemn soliloquizing about how there was nothing they could've done, both the mother and son were hopelessly tarnished by madness, et cetera... basically ratifying all of the (deeply disturbed, untreated) mother's worst fears about mental illness being some kind of fatal and unavoidable curse... rather than allowing for the possibility that clearer minds could've stepped in and done somethin'! Great message, a-holes!

1.5/5 There is ONE (1) really fabulous intense distorted close-up of the mother that looks like something out of POSSESSION or a Lynch movie. I will probably never grow tired of distorted ECUs of maniacal characters glaring manically into the camera, filtered through some gauze or some kind of filter or something. However, such close-ups alone do not make for a nation's Greatest Director.

Good Movies / Re: Recent Viewings, Part 2

Last post by Rev. Powell - Today at 12:44:26 PM

THE POCKET FILM OF SUPERSTITIONS (2023): A cheeky pseudo-documentary look at humanity's irrational beliefs through the ages, from a black cat crossing your path to "Devil's Nutting Day," visualized in a style inspired by HAXAN. Humorous, visually inventive, and even a little bit informative. With scream queen legends Caroline Munro and Lynn Lowery.3.5/5. Hope it comes to streaming, for now, you have to buy it on Blu-ray directly from the producers: https://carniefeatures.bigcartel.com/product/the-pocket-film-of-superstitions-blu-ray-numbered-slipcase-art-cards-limited-edition-of-250