Bangalore International Centre has started this year with a refreshing set of movies that will be screened as a part of the Mexican Film Festival at the TERI Complex. Among various international festivals, this is one of its kind. The centre will screen only Mexican art movies, giving a break from the usual ‘Romeo and Juliet running around a tree in bright colours’ or Bollywood queens doing item numbers. Encouraging foreign cinema, the centre screened More Than Anything in the World on January 11.
The movie Mas que a nada en el mundo, (More than anything in the world) will keep you absorbed throughout. The movie has no plot as such, instead it talks about the story of two different people. The first one is a beautiful drama of a single mother Emilia (Eliabeth) and her 8-year-old curious daughter Alicia (Julia Urbini) and the other revolves around an aged man who is suffering from depression because he lost his wife and daughter at a very young age.
The single mother recently got divorced and moved to an new apartment with Alicia. Emilia wants to start a new life, so she is open to seeing other men and slowly starts inviting her friends and colleagues to her apartment. While this is happening, she also tries to find a balance in her new life. Alicia also started something new. She learnt about vampires at school and is curious to find one. She starts seeing every guy that comes home as a vampire. The struggling Emilia tries time and again to convince her daughter that there are no vampires, however Alicia begs to differ. This brought out some sort of humor in the intense drama between the two. In one particular scene, Alicia learnt that vampires attack humans by biting their neck, one night she saw her mother come out of a room with another man, she noticed a hickey on her neck. This convinced Alicia that her mother was possessed by a vampire. This did bring quite a few laughs and kept the crowd entertained for sometime. The curiosity of the child grew bigger and got the better of Emilia. Managing her busy life and her new life style just made it hard for her to pay more attention to her daughter’s unreal quest. This slowly faded the relation between the two. The misunderstanding between the child and the mother made the apartment noisy with foul language and shouts every now and then.
Whereas on the other hand, the old man who lives next door, hears them every night, which brings back memories of his wife and daughter, whom he misses. The man knows that, he is going to die soon, so he tries to find his lost daughter in Alicia. He stalks her by looking through his window during the night, and smiles to himself. Whereas Alicia, is threatened by him looking at her, and feels that he is a vampire because she learnt that vampires come out only during the night.
The mother, who was cheated by her new found lover, gives up finding the perfect guy and spends more time in looking after Alicia. Whenever this happens, you know the movie has a happy ending. However, there was one scene before the happy ending. Alicia learnt that, sunlight and the Holy Cross can kill the vampire.
So one morning, she visits the old man’s apartment, with a cross. Thinking that he was fast asleep, she places the cross on his chest and runs away unnoticed. However, fate has something else in store for the old man.
The story of a single mother with her daughter and the lonely old man talks a lot about being around with your special ones. This is truly a motivating movie. It spreads a message that every minute you spend with your loved ones is precious. The director is trying to say, you never know when you will be alone so when you have the chance, don’t let them go.
The Mexican Film Festival will be screening The Desert Inside and Backyard on January 16 and 17 at 6 pm. Entry is free for all.