91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳

A Walk in the Clouds
Starring Keanu Reeves, Aitana Sanchez-Gijon, Anthony Quinn and Giancarlo Giannini
Directed by Alfonso Arau
Reviewed by Barry Healy Magic Realism, the heady mix of gritty emotion and surreal dreaminess, has started to seep out of university literature courses and into the mainstream culture. Witness last years big hit foreign film Like Water for Chocolate, also directed by Mexican film maker Alfonso Arau, which swept the world with its fiery collision of food, passion and forlorn love. But what happens when Magic Realism collides with Hollywood big money? A Walk in the Clouds — and dreamy, emotional, fiery and passionate it is not. Intended to be a sweet romantic comedy choreographed as a salute to the great Hollywood 1940's comedies it fails on all counts and winds up, dripping with nostalgia, as a wooden replica of some of the worse excesses of the era: leaden homilies on family life, a colour by numbers plot line and shallow conflicts followed by implausible resolutions. I'm sure my aged mother would appreciate its reactionary values; I didn't. Anthony Quinn reprises Zorba the Greek; Keanu Reeves acts like he is carved out of wood; the great Spanish actress Aitana Sanchez-Gijon pouts her way along; and Giancarlo Giannini puts on the irrational Latino act yet another time. Apart from Emmanuel Lubezki's photography, which is quite well done, I think Alfonso Arau will regret this film for a long time to come.