Tear This Heart Out (Roberto Sneider, 2008): Mexico

Reviewed by Kevin Tran. Viewed at the Santa Barbara Film Festival

Just because a foreign film plays at a film festival and was submitted by its representative country for the Academy Award (which it was not nominated for, by the way), does not make it a good film. I learned this Saturday night, as I watched Tear This Heart Out to a packed Metro 4 theater at the SBIFF.

The film follows the true story of Catalina Guzman, who as a beautiful, naive teenager falls in love with and marries Andres Ascencio, a general who has hopes of one day becoming president of all of Mexico. Catalina soon realizes that the nasty rumors about Andres, that he is violent, a drunk, and a womanizer, are all becoming true. At the height of Andres’ power, who eventually becomes a governor, Catalina falls in love with a composer, Carlos, whose political ideology clashes with Andres.

It isn’t the performances that made me not like Sneider’s film; in fact, the performances were all believable and powerful. It wasn’t Javier Aguirresarobe’s cinematography (Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Talk To Her), which beautifully captured the young, developing country of Mexico at the time and all of Mexico’s culture.

What bothered me most about Tear This Heart Out was its ideology on gender. Catalina is supposed to change from a young, village girl to a strong, independent woman. And although she gains authority and wealth, being the wife to one of the most powerful man in Mexico, she does little with it.

For the majority of the film, she is either sleeping with Andres, a man who she supposedly loathes and hates, or having an affair with Carlos. Unlike the strong women depicted in Almodovar films that use their sexuality for a cause or purpose, Catalina seems have sex out of pure selfishness. She then becomes completely attached to the man and was controlled by that man throughout the entire film.

Tear This Heart Out might tell a historic and factual story, but it was not the kind of film would hit you on an emotional or wow on cinematic one. Being shown with other films from around the world at the SBIFF that actually have something interesting to say or something new to express, the 107 minutes (which feels a lot longer than it is) you would spend on this film on something else.