Recipes to Stay Together (1996)
"Cilantro y perejil" is a comedy about couples from the same family, hit by the economic crisis in Mexico. The plot turns around the eternal question of whether it is worth it to live as a couple. The conclusions are fun, unpredictable and very human. After ending a ten-year marriage, Carlos and Susana try to fall in love with other people without success. As the days go by, Carlos realizes that without Susana he is unable to do many things, including distinguishing cilantro from parsley.
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The film "Cilantro y Perejil" falls under the romantic comedy genre. The title of the film suggest the theme of the story so similar but yet so different. This is a comedy about couples and their definition of what love is and the believe that there is that right person just for you. We begin the story with an interview that Susana is having with Nora about what love is and what does a person feel when he or she sees their other half, for a school project that she is putting together. As Susana states all these things about what a person should feel, Nora asks her if she feels that for Carlos her husband. Susana Replies with a no. The story starts to develop when Susana divorces her husband Carlos. After the divorce they try to rebuild their own love life. They date different people through work, friends and a singles club that Nora sights them up for; to find out that they have nothing in common with the people they date. After all of that at the end they realize that they always had what they were looking for.As the film develops it touches in many social issues throughout the documentary that Nora is filming for her school project or on the film itself. Family life is put to question and the problems that the children face after their parents split up. The complication of love and romance and how globalization has changed it is also one of the issues that are being address in the film. Over all the director did a great job on bringing the different issues together on the film. In combination with the smooth editing and the technique of a film within a film. Bottom line is a great film to watch
Recipes to Stay Together (Cilantro y Perejil) is a movie about love and love after marriage, which are two separate issues according to the narrator(a psychoanalyst). We meet a married couple arguing on each others' opinions and negligence as if they are playing a sitcom episode. As the story progresses they separate, so the most popular clichés begins to occur: Financial sharing, children sharing, responsibility sharing... The woman starts to believe she is not yet found her real love, and to believe perfect man exists for her. Also the man starts to have flirtations with new women, love affairs with his secretary. Love becomes a shield against loneliness, and a way to escape from the truth that they are meant for each other. Anytime they coincide together, they become jealous of each other's happiness, knowing that in fact they are not happy separately. With a very trite plot and nothing new, merely acting comes to the focus. Because the movie is full of sexualities(not nudity) viewers' attention is pointed to the actors. Musical score helps us out to put some more concern into the husband's and wife's thoughts and expectations. As an optimistic statement says that everything in life deserves a second chance; whereupon we find the sweethearts coming back together through another coincidence. Love is being analyzed within monogamy, despite the lovers' betrayals. Each of them betrayed the other to end up with accepting they are still in love. In conclusion, the only good reason to watch this movie is if you believe in monogamy and think that way as everybody loves just once in a lifetime.
"Cilantro y Perejil" is, in a way, your typical romantic comedy, but it is so in a very Mexican, light, fun and entertaining way, which is rare in cinema from this country. It might be predictable and not-too-bright, but what it lacks in depth, this film compensates in spice, humor and the sense transmitted through the screen that the people who made it actually tried to do a good movie, and enjoyed it. German Dehesa's interventions are delightful, and lower the saccharine factor in the love stories. The stories complement each other nicely, and each of them is represented by the most famous faces in the new Mexican Cinema. It really is worth seeing just as an accomplishment at its time and a precursor of films like "Sexo, Pudor y Lágrimas".
Maybe fans of 'fresa' humor will enjoy this. But other than a few sarcastic bits, it is just a lame sitcom with annoying characters who go through boring situations, with a documentary-within-a-movie splitting up episodes. The documentary bits are sometimes interesting, and sometimes just as lame as everything else. This does not fall in the school of daring, cutting-edge, realistic, sarcastic Latin American cinema. Instead it falls in the same group of movies that sound like they were written by the same people who write telenovelas and latino sitcoms, thinking that they are funny, just because somebody in Televisa likes this crap and wants to keep Mexican people ignorant, so that they do not rebel against the governing status quo. Alright, this sounds far too revolutionary and almost makes the movie sound like it had anything to do with politics or social commentary. It is merely a lame sitcom, stretched out.Not horrible, but not worth your time.