Films with: Flores, Magdalena

Japón

Mexican director Carlos Reygadas' first film is a poetic, existential drama that explores life, death, truth and redemption on a journey through the rugged and unforgiving Mexican landscape. The film follows an unnamed, middle-aged artist (Alejandro Ferretis), who is tired and disillusioned with life in Mexico City. He travels to the countryside where he plans to kill himself. Here, he meets Ascen (Magdalena Flores), an old widow who lives by herself in the mountains, and he takes up lodging with her. Ascen is uneducated, but has a profound understanding of life's problems. Her ability to transcend them is far superior to that of the intellectual Ferretis; her limitless generosity and kindness help him find the will to live.

DVD 11134

Japón

"In this preternaturally assured feature debut by Carlos Reygadas, a man (Alejandro Ferretis) travels from Mexico City to an isolated village to commit suicide; once there, however, he meets a pious elderly woman (Magdalena Flores) whose quiet humanity incites a reawakening of his desires. Recruiting a cast of nonactors and filming in sublime 16 mm CinemaScope, Reygadas explores the harsh beauty of the Mexican countryside with earthy tactility, conjuring a psychic landscape where religion mingles with sex, life coexists with death, and the animal and spiritual sides of human experience become indistinguishable. A work of soaring ambition and startling visual poetry, Japón is an existential journey through uncharted cinematic territory that established the singular voice of its director"--Container.

DVD 13047