Redwarmin This movie is the proof that the world is becoming a sick and dumb place

Lovesusti The Worst Film Ever

Jenna Walter The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Philippa All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Armand it is the right word for describe the epic story, the beautiful acting, the inspired adaptation . and for the high care for details who defines each scene. story of family and choices, crisis and principles, it is a large social portrait. the traces of drama are translated in powerful images. the music, the costumes, the atmosphere - parts of a great show about the fight against history. a film about sacrifices and about need of the other. cold, strange, sentimental, cruel in few scenes. but convincing at whole. one of rare works for the emotion of viewer because it has the gift to remember dramas who escapes from history book . short - real impressive.

Sherine Yousery This is a very strange movie that is hard to be categorized .. A tale about almost everything: 1- True love, and how it can turn over the whole game, how it can change souls, save lives and redeem some people.2- Poverty, oppression and politics .. how most of the time events get so related without us noticing or taking the time to look closer.3- Fate, with all the themes you can imagine, taking place in one movie .. I bet even if you're young, you will feel old by the end of this powerful movie ..4- What really matters in life, the kind of imprint you will want to leave someday, sometimes it's not about being tough or seemingly strong, but rather about knowing love and being gentle ..5- I've never been afraid of death itself, as I have from an unlived life. However, the line said by Clara, "You must not wish for death, that's not important, death will come no matter" is one of the most powerful I've ever heard in my life, and a scene anyone should watch if they ever get hurt enough to want their life to end ..6- And most importantly, it has taught me a lot about unconditional love .. You'll see an oppressor -who has raped a girl and denied a child, almost killed the only man his daughter has ever loved and got rid of his lonely sad sister- loved by a woman that's as beautiful as an angel .. Because that's unconditional love most of us have no knowledge of, because we have a compromised understanding of "common sense", because you love someone as they are with all the demons inside and because, if you look too carefully, you'll know that none of us are angels or demons. We're grey. And we can find ourselves in places we've never dreamt we would put ourselves in, or wake up to find ourselves diverted a lot from the path we've originally chosen.This is a very powerful movie that's highly entertaining and deep, and its depth is measured by how much "you" can get out of it. Regards to all the makers of this beautiful movie which should be one of the top movies ever, especially the amazingly graceful Meryl Streep. Thank you.

CalvinValjean The first time I saw THE HOUSE OF THE SPIRITS, I had a similar reaction to what most critics seemed to have. I felt the movie was bad, but couldn't say why exactly. It's hard to find fault in a movie with such an esteemed cast, such great sets and cinematography, etc. I knew it was based on a famous novel, so I figured the problem must have been in the adaptation.Upon reading the novel and then going back to the film, I realized something interesting: the film starts out as a faithful adaptation before losing its way, but the biggest issue is the tone.The novel's style of magical realism is, right from the start, difficult to adapt to film. There's green hair, there's magic remedies, and there's a very darkly humorous tone. The film on the other hand is very bleak and brooding, with only some slight supernatural element, which is kind of shrugged off. Roger Ebert, who always has a perfect way of articulating the best criticism, worded it best: "Magic realism, which informs so many South American stories, is treated here as a slightly embarrassing social gaffe, like passing wind. Clara's gifts are not made integral to the story; the filmmakers see them more as ornamentation." For example, in the book, Severo and Nivea die in a car accident and Clara keeps her mother's decapitated head in the basement. Years later, when Clara dies, Esteban tells his servants "Well, we might as well bury my mother-in-law's head now." Moments like that are missing, and instead we just have a scene of Severo and Nivea in a random car accident in the film, and are then never mentioned again. Why even bother having the car accident at all? And why waste Vanessa Redgrave in such a small role? Now this leads into another issue: the most infamous criticism of this film is that it stars a bunch of "gringos" (Jeremy Irons, Meryl Streep, Glenn Close, and Winona Ryder) as Chilean characters. At first glance, you might think this is a shallow thing to criticize: actors play characters of different ethnic backgrounds all the time, nor is there any one way that a Chilean person should "look." But I think this criticism is actually a misdiagnosis of a bigger problem. The problem isn't that these actors are all Anglo; it's the fact that they play their characters in a very Anglicized way for an Anglo audience. They mispronounce names like Tres Marias ("Trays Muh-ree-ahs") and Esteban ("Estuh-baan") and say them all as if these names are foreign to them. Irons, who is British, sounds American while Close, who is American, sounds British. Winona Ryder's character is presented as an all-American girl. There's even a scene towards the end, while Blanca is being tortured and Alba waits for her at home, where Alba is eating out a Kentucky Fried Chicken box in the 1970's! (KFC didn't start opening stores in Chile until 1992. Yes, I actually looked it up out of curiosity). Now you might say "Who cares if they show a KFC box? That's nitpicking." It might not seem important, but on a subtextual level, it's significant. The filmmakers are trying to dilute the Hispanism of the story and create the mindset that this could easily be happening in the US. All of this adds a feeling of displacement to the movie. Because it loses its Chilean and Latino identity, the politics lose their context. What is the coup at the end all about? Why does it happen? What happened to the workers at Tres Marias? Why was Pedro III an enemy of the military's?When you take this story, remove its Hispanic context and magic realism, what you're left with is just a domestic drama, which is less interesting than its book counterpart when it is simplified. The adaptation's biggest change is the removal of an entire generation and combining Blanca and Alba into one character. This completely changes the third act and it now makes no sense for Esteban to help Pedro III escape. In the book, Esteban joins forces with Miguel as they both care about saving Alba. In the film's version, joining forces with Pedro III will in no way have any affect on saving Blanca. The impact of Esteban's relationship with Alba is also lost as she is reduced to only a small child in the film and not given much character. In the book, Esteban has affairs with multiple women at Tres Marias and fathers many children, which everyone is aware of. In the film, he just randomly commits violent rape one day in a very abrupt scene, and then completely forgets about it until a son shows up one day. Because of the removal of an entire generation, Esteban III in the book is Esteban II in the film, and his character is given the Hollywood archetypes of a perverse and disturbed villain rather than as the symbol of lineage of violence he was in the book. In addition to this you have the removal of Blanca's brothers from the book and a climax that doesn't play very dramatically, and the resulting story is very fractured and loses the epic 3-generation sweep of the novel.I am left wondering if any film could have been made of this book, which has so many characters and spans many different episodes. Regardless, this film, and its serious tone, do not suit the book at all, and just leaves audiences wondering what the story they just saw was all about.

jfarms1956 The House Of The Spirits would be be for the 18 crowd. I found this movie to be a tedious and rather pointless movie. To me, I saw little purpose in this movie. There are many actors and actresses which I love to see are in this movie. Stars such as Meryl Streep, Glenn Close, Winona Ryder, Vanessa Redgrave and Antonio Banderas are in this flick. The House Of Spirits is a long movie. I believe that 20 minutes could have been edited out. Yes, The House of the Spirits movie does give one insight as to how people in Chile live. I was disappointed to have so many of my favorite stars in a pointless film. This is definitely a movie to have on TV and play cards to or have another activity going on. If you don't have anything else to do but relax, watch it. I give The House Of the Spirits three thumbs up.