The greatest movie ever!

Let's be realistic.

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

The film Danzón, directed by Maria Novaro, was an interesting film. The film is about Julia, a telephone operator, who devotes her time to her little girl, her work, and to dancing. In the movie she dances with Carmelo, someone who she has never met but they always dance together. One day Carmelo does not come to dance and Julia leaves her daughter and her job to go find this man whom she never knew. In the end she returns to her house because she can not find him and in the room where they dance, she finds Carmelo. I liked the idea of ​​the movie but it was a bit confusing in parts. It was not a very realistic film but with what they were trying to do I do not think there was a realistic way to do it. It's an adventure movie about following your heart. She felt something so strong, with Carmelo, that she left her little girl behind to look for him. I'm not sure if that's love or being a bad mother. They were trying to say that love is one of the most important things in life and you should never let it go. With that in mind, I think they did a good job in conveying that message. It was also a very advanced film. I say that because of their use of an actor who was a transvestite. Especially given that in the Latin American culture the transvestites do not play a big part. Using a transvestite opens the dialogue to the LGBTQ group. With dialogue you can advance the knowledge of these people and the argument they have. Danzón was an exceptional movie with a message that many people need to hear. I liked the movie a lot and recommend it to everyone who likes adventure and romantic movies.

This film can hardly be classified as such. It lacks and visual style to distinguish it from other poorly made melodramas. It's characters are almost all stock, save for Julia, who is the only person the audience is supposed to connect with. However, due to a poor performance by the main actress and a horrifically abstract plot, we are unable to connect in any real way with this woman.Julia runs off to a city she does not know to find her dance partner, and she does not find him, but she does find a new sort of "family" consisting of a drag queen, a hooker, a no-nonsense hotel manager and a man young enough to be her son who she gets to "know" very well. This would be almost satisfying if the film did not first establish her OTHER family by giving the relationship Julia has with her daughter and her friends at home so much screen time. Maybe the "finding herself and her family" story line would have been effective if the viewer did not already feel that she had these things already. This choice makes the whole film obsolete, and instead of making Julia sympathetic, it makes her seem selfish and also very stupid.But then there is the ending. She returns home to her first family (after abandoning her found family, just like her dance partner had abandoned her--so had she really grown?)and returns to the dance hall, alone and ready to dance without a partner. This is the one act that showed some bravery (the actually brave kind, not the dumb "I'm running off to a strange city alone to spend all my savings looking for one man" kind). FOr a moment, the viewer is left satisfied thinking that the film is allowing its heroine to grow--but then who should appear but Carmelo, her dance partner. The frame is filled by their passion-less dance for what seems like hours, and the end credits begin to roll. This is a wholly unsatisfying ending for two reasons: 1)The film establishes Carmelo to be kind of a God figure, illusive and unobtainable, the perfect being that Julia is going to such ends to be with, and to show us him is just painful. 2)It negates the rest of the plot. Why did we waste so much time on this journey if she didn't really need to take it? Would Carmelo not have come back if she had not befriended a drag queen? The problems with this movie go beyond plot elements. It is very poorly shot. First time director Navaro (who also edited the film) lets the camera linger for far too long on mostly static objects. This halts the pacing of the film, and it occurs many, many times throughout. There is also an amazing amount of fluid camera movements, pans and tilts from one character to another, to a sign, to a building and then back to another camera. It is nauseating to see.The only thing that keeps me from giving this film a 1 is that it does show single women of a certain age living in Mexico, and it shows them in a positive light. It does not victimize them as single women so often are in Mexican cinema, but deals with them as people who work, who live and who are independent. But this is just not enough to support a film. As a feminist statement, it makes its point, as an entertaining or engaging film, it fails completely.

"Danzon" is a "chick flick", no doubt. Directed by a woman, its main star is a woman--and it is concerned mainly with woman's issues. The setting is contemporary Mexico City. The danzon--a slow, graceful dance of l9th century Cuban origin--is the force that brings the heroine Julia together and her long time competition dance partner Carmen. When Carmen vaporizes, Julia heads for the coast--Veracruz--to search for him. Once there, she meets a series of unique characters, which add up to a wonderful viewing experience. I feel that Julia also meets herself there--discovering her real value as a woman and human being. When she returns to her job in Mexico City, she's a changed woman for numerous reasons--all good. A strong subtle movie.

Julia is a middle aged phone operator in Mexico City who divides her time between her job, her daughter and the "Danzon": an elegant, romantic Cuban dance popular in Caribbean Latin America.Julia wants to taste one great romance in her life before she feels she will have lost what's left of her beauty. Like a ritual, each Wednesday Julia dances the Danzon with the dashing, mysterious and still handsome Carmelo in the old "Salon Colonia". They've danced for years but barely know each other.One night Carmelo disappears without a trace. Suddenly bereft, Julia abandons well-regulated obligations and responsibilities and sets off on a long distance odyssey, searching for her missing cavalier. These comic, touching and ultimately triumphant adventures lead Julia to a deeper comprehension of the meaning of life and true happiness.