Product Description

Starred by Mexican Hollywood star Salma Hayek and with 49 international awards, (including a Golden Ariel Award and a Goya Award Winner for Best Spanish Language Foreign Film) this is the most-awarded film in Mexican history! The story, based on the Nobel Prize-winning novel, Miracle Alley, takes place in a rundown neighborhood in Mexico City where three people’s lives meet and intertwine. Rutilio, owner of the local canteen, finds himself frustrated in his marriage with Eusebia and discovers new yet strange personal feelings. The young barber, Abel, along with Don Fidel, are both in love with the beautiful and sensuous Alma (Salma Hayek), daughter of Cata, the tarot reader. Susanita, a dreaming spinster, looks for love but in reality falls prey to a thief. As their paths gradually cross, the characters are temporarily condemned to a tragic and solemn future. The desperate characters are struggling to escape their circumstances in any way they can but the only one thing they have in common is that, in the end, none of them gets what they really want.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #56849 in DVD
• Released on: 2004-12-21
• Rating: Unrated
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: Color, Dolby, DVD, Subtitled, NTSC
• Original language: Spanish
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 140 minutes

Customer Reviews

This masterpiece is my favorite movie ever...
This film has not had the exposure it deserves, since it is truly a masterpiece, not only of Mexican film but of international film in general. It takes the idea of viewing one story from different perspectives to new heights, as we watch how ten different things can all be happening at once, without any of those involved realizing what is going on.

The film uses a technique that has now been copied ad nauseum, beginning each section with a title screen containing one character's name and then telling the "same" story from that character's perspective. But each of these perspectives is completely disconnected from the others and creates a set of snapshots of the life on Miracle Alley at one point in time.

Because each character is so different from the others (a middle-aged man in an unhappy marriage, a young woman struggling to survive in a heartless world, a wealthy but homely woman who doesn't fit into the society around her), the film gives a great overview of different types of people who probably do exist in Mexico today, all so very diverse. Could be an eye-opener for many American viewers who look at Mexicans as one big indistinct mass, since this film shows just how different the people living on one tiny street can be.

It truly is my favorite movie of all times (and I have seen a lot!), so I must recommend it.

Venevision edition
Bad news, contrary to what the package says, this edition has Full Screen transfer... but at least the extras are really good, and the english subtitles are removable

Good movie, good idea
Maybe the movie isn't the greatest movie ever made, but it does have a great idea. Very Pulp Fiction like in the sense it follows 4 people version of the same story. It's not as twisted as Pulp Fiction, but nontheless pioneering.

Salma does a good job acting, but the guy that becomes her pimp at the end is horrible. An okay storyline with okay acting

I definitley recommend buying the movie