SunnyHello Nice effects though.

Micransix Crappy film

Humaira Grant It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Loui Blair It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

susannettashop Ripstein and his wife and screen writer Paz Alicia Garciadiego have made a faithful version of the hideous tragedy of the Roman Seneca's Medea, moved and updated to a small, claustrophobic neighborhood in Mexico City. We watch as Julia, an abortionist and curandera, abandoned for a younger and richer woman by her husband, a small-time pugilist named Nicolas, maintains a self-destructive fury that ends in her murder of their two children. Even as a classicist, I am bothered rather than cheered by Ripstein's faithfulness to Seneca's tragedy. This is because Asi es la vida is theatrical rather than cinematic: except for showing the back of a mysterious silver van, an ambulance that may represent fate, Ripstein confines his mise-en-scene to interiors and exteriors that could have been stage sets. So, like Seneca's tragedy, the film feels static. Additionally, there is no development of the characters, who get angry and stay angry. Is it because he is in sympathy with Seneca that Ripstein misses the advantages of film? He does not paint with a world of images and memories to give a full picture of characters and to fill in the story. Instead, the subconscious of the Julia (the Medea character) and her almost ex Nicolas (the Jason character) close in rather than opening out cinematographically. The chorus could drive you crazy! It is a depressing mariachi band with an affectless boy listlessly shaking his marraccas who sing what Medea is feeling, first in her presence and later from a TV screen. Her stormy feelings are also read weather channel. The TV also stands in for Jason's lust, playing porn as he makes love to his new sweety. These devices, the chorus, the TV, and the mysterious van, rather than matching or contrasting images give the film coherence. If it is an anti-film, Asi es la vita does not add much to the dialog between men and women. Julia is every abandoned woman who has no identity and no value apart her husband and her children. Using Seneca's tragedy to tell us that little has changed in the war between men and women since Roman times is gratuitous. As Julia, Arcelia Ramirez is believable as she bangs her head against the wall and punches herself making her face bleed, to the accompaniment of the mariachis, but under Ripstein's direction I am afraid that the film is exploitative rather than revealing. A weird sense of humor undercuts the tragedy. The King figure, Julia's landlord and the father of Nicolas's love interest, for example is a hugely fat man who waddles around the barrio in a robe and slippers. The Pig, as he is known, along with the semi-serious mariachis, the weather channel and the porn films, the yellow cab in which Julia escapes after committing double murder all belong to the tradition of the theater of alienation. These devices are too small for the big screen. Ripstein's film does not make as good use of the techne and resources of cinema as Lars von Trier's or Pasolini's versions of Medea.

AKIRA-24 Of course it´s Ripstein. A great mexican director. In this movie he makes a very personal adaptation, to the México of our times, of the classical greek tragedy MEDEA. With a very sordid scenario and a really complex narrative. Using a TV like flashbacks and thoughts of the characters and like the place for the mariachis that plays the role of the classical Chorus of the greek theatre, this movie is a real masterpiece of our times.This, is the first movie of latin american that has been made in a DV format. And this shows a possible future for the low budget productions.

B & M Así es la vida is the first latin american digital film transfered to 35mm. For those who didn't understand it, it's a contemporary version of Sénecas' Medea, a greek tragedy. So don't complain about the script because that was the intention of all that complex language. Based on this story, the film is excellent, the scenario and the ambient are very well mixed with the movement of the camera, so you get long scenes but not monotonous. For me, displaying the trio as a the chorus of a greek play was an excellent idea. Although is a little strange film, a Ripstein's film, for me the way they treated the character of Julia wasn't that strange. How she remains homeless happens at least here in Mexico City, how she is cheated, etc. So it's curious how a very old tragedy it's well adapted to our days. So, finally, it's a very good experiment in digital video, it's a simple story maybe, but with a lot of details on it.

cesarbe I was so enthusiastic for this film... before seeing it. "Así es la vida" is the first latin american commercially released film shot on digital video (Pal system, of course) and, beyond that technical achievement, it´s of little interest. The movie shows (and, as usual in Ripstein, into a sordid scenario) a woman complaining and punishing herself because her husband left her and went away with another (younger) woman. When the man comes back for taking the kids with him, then she will decide how to take revenge...I think the question here is: how long, as a viewer, can you stand a woman complaining without anything actually happening? Certainly there is no dramatic progression -perhaps the film would have worked better if the story showed this couple from the beginning of the relationship so we could follow their degradation- and the characters are so cliché... it´s obvious Ripstein here is using the sordid elements not to reveal the depths of his characters but simply to shock us gratuitously. As always the dialogs are soup-opera kind, but here they just don´t work and seem a little pretentious. Visually, the film lacks appeal. The director uses long one-shot takes that give the movie a monotonous feeling. Anyway, I must say that the election of the DV -with all its imperfections- as format helps a lot to build the atmosphere and the decoration is just brilliant.Some OKs, like using the tv and the musical group to show the feelings of the characters, a very funny take (above all, the film has a certain black humor that I appreciate) where we see the very same Ripstein through a mirror, don´t save this picture. By the way, it feels like he has seen Von Trier´s "Breaking the waves" a lot... If you have seen Ripstein´s best "Principio y Fin" then you have already seen "Así es la vida". Hmmm.