Film Analysis of Alfonso Arau's Like Water for Chocolate Film Review

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Water for Chocolate

Alfonso Arau's Like Water for Chocolate is a tragic love story. Tita de la Garza and Pedro are in love but are not allowed to marry because of a family tradition which bars the youngest daughter from marrying anyone until her mother has died and no longer needs the daughter to take care of her. Tita's sisters, Rosaura and Gertrudis, are allowed to marry and do so, Rosaura marrying Pedro who only marries her in order to be close to Tita. Unable to marry the man she loves or to fully express her emotions in any real way, Tita puts everything inside her into the food that she prepares for the family. Her unexpressed emotions appear to others in the form of grief, of passion, and of nurturing. After breaking free from her mother, Tita becomes romantically attached to another man but this fizzles after she and Pedro give in to their lustful feelings for one another. Eventually, all of the three members of the story's love triangle, Rosaura, her sisiter Tita, and Pedro, die as a direct result of consumption or satisfying of hungers. Throughout the film, preparation and consumption of food serve several functions. There is an obvious symbolic meaning behind the making and eating of food but there is also a cultural meaning as well, the preparation of food and its consumption being a significant part of Hispanic culture.

Food is an extremely important part of Like Water for Chocolate. Each food item that is shown on film is highlighted as if each piece of food were its own work of art. The filmmakers use close-ups of the food both in its finished form and while it is still a collection of individual ingredients to tantalize and tease the audience. Food stuffs are lit as though they were beacons of hope in a dark world. It is designed to enflame the hunger of the audience and this can only be intentional. Just like the characters, the audience becomes consumed by the beauty of the meals and by the attention that is given to each item's preparation. The sensuality of the film and the emotions of Tita are given to the viewer as much as they will be imparted to the other characters in the story.

In Like Water for Chocolate, food is everything, or at the very least it is connected to everything. As the food preparer, Tita has a great deal of power over her family members. She shows herself to be stronger and more dedicated than anyone else. Each meal she prepares has significance because of the power she imparts into the food. As Mackenzie Dennard of the Food in the Arts project states:

Whether it be dinner rolls, wedding cake or sausages, the dish's sole being relies on the recipes. In a sense, the recipe is the first step in a chain reaction to triggering a memory. After the food is produced, it has a texture, smell, shape, taste, and color unlike the others. These elements arouse the senses, which can trigger emotions (1).

The food preparer in this film has a power over the other characters, which mirrors their actual role as the one who provides nutrition and needed nourishment. Tita has a great deal more power in her family that she understands because of her role in the kitchen. This is why in many cultures those who cook the food are considered very important and the kitchen takes on significance as the place where the food is created. The mother and the grandmother are respected figures as they provide for others, a role which Tita has taken up herself instead of her mother.

In addition to the obvious symbolic meanings behind the food preparation and consumption in Like Water for Chocolate, there is cultural significance as well. Most cultures have traditional food as part of what defines the culture and the Hispanic families in this story are no exception. The Spanish title for the film is Como Agua Para Chocolate which is a common expression in Mexico. Besides the reference to the actual creation of hot chocolate, this expression refers to a person who is feeling extremely passionate, usually because of anger or sexual energy, as if they were the boiling water. It can also mean that something is a perfect match to something else, similar to the English expression about two peas in a pod (Ebert). Both of the meanings are present in the film. The food preparation is obviously an important part of the story, but so is the emotions, particularly of sexual passion which is felt by the protagonist Tita.

There are specific points in the film where consumption of food has a symbolic significance to the characters and the plot of Like Water for Chocolate.

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Firstly, when Tita prepares a wedding cake for Rosaura and Pedro's wedding. For obvious reasons Tita is absolutely devastated that the man she loves will be marrying her sister. The fact that she has to make their wedding cake is only adding insult to injury. Her tears become mixed in with the other ingredients and inspire great emotions in anyone who eats the cake. When the wedding party eats the cake, they become enchanted or some would say cursed by what they have consumed. Those who eat the cake are overcome by tears, by the need to vomit which they do extraneously, and most of all the yearning for the person who they are truly in love with, a sensation which in some cases leads to the crying and vomiting. This scene in the film is played for laughs as we see a kind of retribution for poor Tita (Niebylski 190). By forcing others to see the face of their true loves and making them long for that person, all the wedding guests are experiencing the same kind of suffering Tita has had to deal with since she fell in love and learned she could not have her beloved.

As the story progresses, Tita's power to influence her food with her feelings becomes more potent. When makes a meal of quail with a sauce made of rose petals, she is simultaneously having sexual fantasies about Pedro, sensations which become ingrained in her recipe. When you think of roses, the immediate connections that come to mind are love, romance, and passion. The choice of ingredients is as important as the final meal. Consumed with the thoughts of her beloved and what she would like to do with him, Tita subconsciously chooses a recipe that is already likened to sensual desires. Her own emotions only heighten what was set into the universe by the choice to prepare that particular recipe. Tita's sister Gertrudis consumes the food and winds up running off naked and joining a guerilla army. All of Tita's sexual frustration and feelings of lust are passed to her sister who is unable to control these feelings.

Later on, when Rosaura and Pedro have a child, she finds herself unable to breastfeed the baby. Although not a mother and therefore biologically incapable of lactating, Tita is able to produce the milk and feed the child. She is not a mother herself, but through the preparation of food stuff for the infant to consume, the narrative shows who the rightful mother of this child should be. Tita herself does not indicate that she has made any such mental connection. Rather, she feeds the baby because she can. To her, she is able to produce breast milk, not for any cosmic reason, but simply because she is the person who feeds the others. She cannot feed the baby cake or foul, so she prepares breast milk. When Tita is removed from the baby's life, it dies as it is unable to eat. Rosaura is unable to provide for her child in any way, illustrating the character's true nature. Although her other child, Esperanza, is able to live, it must be assumed she survived despite her mother and not because of anything Rosaura was able to provide for her child.

Of the two women in Pedro's life, his wife is the least suited for him both in temperament and in merits according to their society. Rosaura's death near the end of the film is attributed to digestive issues. It can thus be assumed that whatever food she has eaten acted as a toxin to her and she was unable to process the food through her digestive system, eventually dying because of what she ate. Pedro has treated her badly throughout their marriage. She is not the person he loves and he has even less regard for her because of her inability to cook and the fact that she is physically unappealing. "Rosaura, who is fixated with preserving her public image, dies in a horrible, bloated state from 'severe digestive problems'" (Singson 1). Her inability to connect with food, either through preparation or through successful consumption shows her inadequacy as a woman within….....

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