August 2005

Ignacio Durán Loera talks to Elizabeth Mistry exclusively for Mexicanwave about the making of a modern classic…

WIN a copy of Como Agua Para Chocolate on DVD…

For many cinema-lovers, the Golden Age of Mexican Cinema was back in the 1940s and 50s, when stars such as Maria Felix appeared in movies such as Doña Bárbara and La Escondida.

But for producer Ignacio Durán Loera, who was director of the Instituto Mexicano de Cinematografía (Mexican Film Institute, IMCINE) from 1988 to 1995, the 1990s heralded a new era of film making in Mexico that has continued to this day.

Durán produced a string of hits including Solo Con Tu Pareja (1991) but his best known and certainly the most commercially successful he worked on was the 1992 smash hit Como Agua Para Chocolate (Like Water For Chocolate) – which will be released for the first time on DVD in the UK on 19 September.

A critical and commercial success not only in Mexico but in all markets, it became the highest grossing foreign film ever in the US. But he very nearly lost out on the chance to be involved and, as he recounts, the title has a particular resonance for him.

The film was based on the novel by Laura Esquivel (who was then married to the film’s director Alfonso Arau) and the title comes from a popular Mexican dicho - a saying – that alludes to how one feels when passions run high; ’hot’.

More recently Arau directed Zapata, with Alejandro Fernández as the lead

And it was hot water that Durán almost found himself in back in 1989 not long after he had joined IMCINE.

“One day my wife came to me and she said ‘this is a book that you should read. It would make a beautiful film.’

Of course I left it on my night table and forgot all about it. Then, about three months afterwards, we were watching TV late one night when the announcer of a very popular programme said that Gregorio Walerstein was going to start filming Like Water For Chocolate.

Well, my wife gave me that terrible look and I read the book that same night.

Next morning I said to her “Yes darling, you were right it would make a helluva film.”

And the Gods were smiling upon me because that same day, I was in my office [at IMCINE], at about 10 o’clock in the morning when my secretary said that Alfonso Arau was here with his wife…”and he wants to see you.”

Alfonso and Laura came in and he said to me: “Nacho, yesterday Zabludovsky gave out some very very wrong information. I am not going to make the film with Walerstein, I want to make it with you.”

And I said, “Alfonso, you are not leaving this room without a provisional agreement”, so we signed there and then.

Before we started shooting I didn’t know Laura very well. But she invited us to their home and she gave us a feast - she prepared the menu from the film - and it was incredible. The dish I remember most was the one with the petals.

We started shooting in 1990 and almost all of the film was shot on location, around several haciendas in Coahuila (near Ciudad Acuña and Piedras Negras) and in Chihuahua.

The budget was about $1.2 million. It wasn’t terribly expensive, about $300,000 more than other films we’d done. Solo Con Tu Pareja had cost about $800,000.

But the shooting was very difficult. Laura got sick; she had to be taken to hospital across the border. It was a terrible pressure on Alfonso, but we were lucky to have (Emmanuel) Lubezki the cinematograher - he made a very important contribution to the film.

Eventually they went back to Mexico City where Alfonso was trying to edit the film on a new system - Avid. At the time, there was only one machine in the whole of Mexico - in the studio at Churubusco.

That was a very tricky time. I remember he called several times to say he was having a bit of a problem… but then he finally told me: “The film is finished.”

I went to see it in the screening room at Churubusco. Just Arau, Laura, myself and a couple of other people.

At the end of the screening I said to him “Dejeme darte un abrazo” – let me give you a hug – because this is the best film that you have ever made. I was very touched by it, and I told him “this will bring you great satisfaction.”

I knew immediately that this was going to be a stepping stone for Mexican cinema. And it came at a very, very convenient time; at that point in the administration, we had only produced a handful of films.

What I hoped of course, is that it would make a very loud splash in the international market. We went to Cannes and I remember when Alfonso told me he had talked to Miramax - to Harvey Weinstein, whom I later met.

There are a handful of films that played a tremendous role in the so-called renaissance of Mexican cinema; La Mujer de Benjamin, Solo Con Tu Pareja (directed by Alfonso Cuaron), Bandidos and Como Agua Para Chocolate.

These movies heralded a new generation of very able film makers such as Alfonso (Cuaron, who went on to make Y Tu Mama Tambien and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban) and Luis ( Estrada, director of Bandidos and La Ley de Herodes).

But Como Agua Para Chocolate was very special. I am very very proud of that film.”

Like Water for Chocolate on DVD is available from the Arrow Film website

© 2005 Elizabeth Mistry. All rights reserved.

Competition

To mark the release of the DVD in the UK, distributor Arrow Film is offering the chance to win a copy of Como Agua Para Chocolate worth £15.99

To enter the competition (UK only), email your answer to the following question to editor @ mexicanwave.com by 15 September 2005.

Question: What is the name of the seasonal Mexican dish that represents the country’s flag?

Reuters reports that dozens of protected Olive Ridley marine turtles were found bludgeoned and carved open by poachers at the weekend.

The slaughter was discovered at La Escobilla, Mexico’s most important Olive Ridley nesting beach, located between the popular surfing resorts of Puerto Angel and Puerto Escondido.

Last year, I wrote about the plight of the Leatherback turtle and how their eggs are coveted in the mistaken belief that they possess aphrodisiac properties.

It appears this new slaughter took place at sea, the poachers’ reaction to increased vigilance on beaches by volunteers and army units.

The turtle hunting ban (in place since 1990) and a combination of community education and tough tactics have helped Olive Ridleys make a comeback, according to Cuauhtémoc Peñaflores Salazar, the director of the Centro Mexicano de la Tortuga in Mazunte.

Up to 10,000 Olive Ridleys can emerge from the Pacific at a time in arribadas (mass nestings) from June to December to each lay about 100 eggs.

Quick link: Junglecasts

What’s a ‘junglecast’ you might be thinking; a podcast from the jungle, of course – audio recordings that can be downloaded from the internet on to any device that will play an .mp3 file.

Dave Pentacost (left) and Nicco Mele at Palenque

To be more precise, we can listen in to Nicco Mele (Echoditto) and Dave Pentecost (The Daily Glyph) as they walk around the ancient site of Palenque, accompanied by their guide, Maya specialist Ed Barnhart of the Maya Exploration Center.

This has certainly grabbed my attention this week. This afternoon I downloaded a couple of the ”soundseeing” podcasts to my PC. I then ’bluetoothed’ these files to my mobile phone for listening on the train.

On my commute home, I eavesdropped on “Dr Ed” conveying various pieces of the Palenque story.

It’s fascinating stuff. There’s a backing track, too; I could also make out some of the forest sounds – the distant echoes of howler monkeys, the raucous calls of parrots and other exotic birds. And some Mexican schoolkids.

I was transported back to Palenque. I remember exploring the grassy plazas, excavated structures and overgrown mounds. 

There is no better guide than Ed with whom to go stomping around jungle ruins. He and his team discovered hundreds of Maya buildings and temples buried beneath centuries of jungle growth, and now he’s sharing his findings with tourists and students.

His Palenque Mapping Project was a three-year effort to survey and map the unknown sections of Palenque’s ruins. Over 1,100 new structures were documented, bringing the site total to almost 1,500.

The resultant map [pdf] has been celebrated as one of the most detailed and accurate ever made of a Maya ruin.

Pioneering stuff.

An introduction to podcasting – broadcast on BBC Radio Five Live, 1 June 2005

The heartbeat of Cuba skipped a beat on Saturday.

The veteran singer died of multiple organ failure. He had only returned from a month-long European tour last Wednesday.

I first saw Ferrer perform with the Afro-Cuban All Stars at the Jazz Cafe in Camden Town. It must have been soon after the start of the Buena Vista Social Club phenomenon that brought long-delayed international fame to a group of older Cuban musicians thanks to a Grammy-winning album produced by Ry Cooder and a subsequent film by Wim Wenders.

Ibrahim Ferrer, who died on Saturday.

Ferrer was at the center of both.

Known for his trademark cap and greying moustache, he was a devotee of traditional styles of Cuban music and since 1997 had released a string of son and bolero albums.

When aged 73, Ferrer earned the ‘best new artist’ award at the first Latin Grammys.

His last public peformance was in southwest France last week. He was one of the headline acts at the Marciac Jazz Festival in Midi-Pyrennes.

Ferrer had been scheduled to return to Europe at the beginning of October and perform at London’s Barbican at the end of that month.

Two other leading members of the Buena Visita Social Club died in 2003; pianist Ruben Gonzalez and guitarist Compay Segundo.

Ibrahim Ferrer will be buried today.

Update: 9 August 2005
Singer Ferrer buried in Havana – BBC

On the eve of Mexican Independence Day last September, the eye of a category 4 storm passed directly over a half-a-dozen scientific ‘wave-tide’ gauges moored to the seabed of the Gulf of Mexico.

The path of Hurricane Ivan through the moorings (blue dots) on 15 September 2004 is indicated by the green dots. Photo courtesy of Naval Research Laboratory

Scientists at the US Naval Research Lab in Mississippi, who monitor the instruments, say their equipment observed crest-to-trough wave heights of 27.7 meters (91 feet) and probably missed some truly monstrous waves near the ‘eyewall’ of the hurricane, which could have topped 40 metres, or 132 feet.

The BBC report that the giant waves would have dwarfed a 10-storey building and had the power to snap a ship in half – but mercifully the huge waves dissipated before they hit land.

How big was the wave?

Storm swell as depicted in ‘A Perfect Storm’ based on the probable demise of a sword boat that went down somewhere off the coast of Massachusetts in October 1991.

Hurricane Ivan had already ripped through the island of Grenada when the seabed readings were taken. It went on to cause death and destruction on Jamaica, the Cayman islands and finally the US, where it petered out.

Although affected by some flooding and high winds, the Yucatán had feared much worse.

The findings appear today in the journal Science

The past 12 months have been the worst on record for hurricanes.

Editor’s note: 2005 severe weather updates

For the past four months Oaxaca’s historic city centre – a world heritage site – has played host to a bizarre guessing game involving the new Governor’s plans for the city’s main square - the zócalo - and bewildered locals and tourists.

The corrugated metal fencing that had shrouded building work has now come down, and with it the children’s drawings, poems and protest banners.

Ron Mader of Planeta.com has kept a photographic record of the zócalo during the renovation work.

View zócalo images as a slideshow

Zócalo, Oaxaca – 1 August 2005  photo: Ron Mader

Ron’s latest photos were taken on Monday from the upstairs balcony at the Casa de la Abuela restaurant, overlooking the northwest corner of the zócalo.

Oaxaqueños have begun to reacquaint themselves with this historic public space. Squinting, they search for a shady spot (there is now much less of it) for a natter a cooling paleta.

The laying of new cantera stone paving is now almost complete. Landscaping of the gardens that surround the existing kiosko, fountains and sculptures is underway. The cast iron benches have been manoevered back into position in the now stark ‘modernised’ square.

The tourists still come. Following a reader survey, the August issue of Travel + Leisure magazine names the city of  Oaxaca the ninth best city in the world.

Maybe time will heal the wounds.