Reviews

I have just seen it the Venezuelan Film Festival at the National University in San Salvador from July 4th to July 8th 2005.

The movie that takes place in the Venezuelan highlands shows how hard hard life is for poor people in a place where discrimination, injustice and corruption exist. It is a portrait of the abuses that people like Tomas and Santiago (Father and Son) suffer just because they are poor and ignorant, and how important it is human dignity beyond social or economic status. It is a story of human beings and the blind and stone-hearted people we have become because of Greed, Egoism and Materialism.

I have just seen this movie in San Salvador for the Colombian Films Week. The plot is simple A middle class Colombian family living in Bogota buys a Red Convertible Chevrolet Bel-Air. Since the very beginning you notice that the car is main character of the movie. All kind of situations happen since before they buy it until they find it some years after they sell it. Accidents. Love Stories, Family Trips, Adventures. The movie shows how important that first experience of having a car for a family is and how people make cars part of the family. Also how difficult can be to say goodbye to them.

I couldn't help remembering one person like them: ME. I still can not sell my old 1961 VW Beetle and the idea of selling it makes feel strange. Maybe It is because I have lived so many things with his companion I even call him a name! So If you want to have memories about that old first beloved and unforgettable car this is your movie.

Just like the Director did some ago in Microcosmos. This is a project in which we can see the advances of film-making, the one that can show us images that we had never seen before. Amazing! Beautiful! This film is not for any public. If you are a blockbuster addict, don't even think about watching it.

Even though I don't speak French and I watched without subtitles, I enjoyed every single and beautiful image. From the crystallization of Vitamin C through and electronic microscope, to the sea horses love dance, from the amazing life of the walking fish to the love parakeets, from the beautiful dance of Jellyfish to the lava rivers, every single image is filled with color, life, joy and some kind of mystery.

Julio Acosta

I watched it on the release week in El Salvador on December 26th 2004. It was the first country in which the movie was shown commercially. What can I say? ALMOST NO WORDS, but WONDERFUL.

I am thirty years old now and by that time I was a kid just like CHAVA. I personally had to flee from El Salvador's Army forced recruitment a couple of times, so the movie was a flashback for me. I cried remembering those nights when bullets were flying over my house.

WAR is a crime no matter what the objective is and specially if innocence is stolen from children.

The movie travels through every place in which children are forced to take a weapon in their innocent hands: Africa, Middle-East, Asia, Colombia, etc; or to every place in which children suffer the consequences of war.

For those who has not lived a war by themselves and enjoy watching the news about IRAQ, AFGHANISTAN, ISRAEL, COLOMBIA it is time to think about what you can do in order to stop this human massacre in the name of "freedom" .