Carlos Carrera – La mujer de Benjamín AKA Benjamin’s Woman (1991)
Old bachelor Benjamin still lives with his sister Micaela in the boredom of a small town. His only entertainment is getting together with a bunch of old men and spare time playing like children. Benjamin falls inlove with beautiful and young Natividad. First, he writes love letters for her. Then, when this strategy fails, Benjamin and the old men plan to abduct her and wait for her falling in love.
Carlos Carrera was an award-winning animator* before he started directing live-action features; his impressive filmography includes Conjugal Life, a festival hit in 1993, and The Crime of Father Amaro, an Oscar nominee in 2003. Benjamin’s Woman, an offbeat, affecting reworking of the Beauty and the Beast legend set in a small Mexican town, was Carrera’s debut feature. Eduardo López Rojas plays titular Benjamin, the town fool, a fifty-year-old bachelor and ex-boxer who lives with his domineering, disagreeable sister. Arcelia Ramírez is Natividad, a beautiful 17-year-old; bored with small-town life and bristling under her mother’s sway, she’s maybe not quite the innocent she appears to be. Benjamin becomes smitten with Natividad and kidnaps her in an effort to win her heart. Natividad, for her part, recognizes her power over her devoted captor, and uses it to her own purposes. The film won Mexico’s Ariel Award for Best First Feature. “Exquisitely realized . . . In the best tradition of Latin American magic realism, Carrera has brilliantly captured the humour, absurdities, delusions, contradictions and imagination of daily life. . . Benjamin’s Woman is a perfectly sculpted gem” (David McIntosh, Toronto I.F.F.).
This well-cragted and intelligent movie with its critically acclaimed ensemble cast unfolds the conflict and frustration that can arise out of unfulfilled desire. It is a humorous, honest film exposing human frailty in which Mexican storytellers do best.
One of the ten best Mexican films ever made according to leading critic Leonardo García Tsao and certainly one of the funniest.
La.Mujer.de.Benjamin.1991.486p.MUBI.WEB-DL.AAC.2.0.h264.mkv General Container: Matroska Runtime: 1h 32mn Size: 1.61 GiB Video Codec: h264 Resolution: 644x486 Aspect ratio: 4:3 Frame rate: 29.970 fps Bit rate: 2 372 kb/s Audio Spanish 2.0ch AAC LC @ 128 kb/s
Language(s):Spanish
Subtitles:English,Turkish,German,Italian
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Hi!
This is a Mexican film, Carlos Carrera was a student at the C.C.C. (Centro de Capacitación Cinematográfica), and La Mujer de Benjamín was his first feature film.
There’s a MAKING OF but it’s not available.
Kind Regards.
changed to Mexican film. Thank you