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A Walk in the Clouds (1995)

Director: Alfonso Arau

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From Time Out Film Guide

Watching Arau's follow-up to Like Water for Chocolate is like finding yourself in Shangri-La, a lost valley where time has stood still for decades, and movies still end with 'The End'. Reeves is Paul Sutton, a GI recently returned from WWII. He has a wife who doesn't love him, nightmares from the front (dream sequences by Alejandro Jodorowsky), a two-bit job as a travelling chocolate salesman, and no prospects. A chance encounter with Victoria Aragon (Sanchez-Gijon) changes all that. She's on her way home to face the music: pregnant, alone, and terrified of her father (Giannini), who oversees the family vineyard in Southern California. Paul agrees to play her husband and then disappear into the night, but he's waylaid by what he finds there, and the kindly efforts of the elderly Don Pedro (Quinn). This is shameless stuff: happy, barefoot peasants sing that traditional Latin cancion, 'Crush the grapes, crush the grapes,' the moonlight is so strong you could get burned, and the metaphors are writ large as tabloid headlines; it's all about putting down roots. See it, if you must, for Keanu's pure puppy-love, and for a peerless drunken duet with Quinn.

Author: TCh 0000-00-00 00:00:00

Time Out Film Guide

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Roncka said...

Posted on May 30 2008 20:46 The family vineyard is in Napa, California, a long way from Sothern California. It would take more water than the Aquaduct could provide to create that kind of lush environment in SoCal. California encompasses every possible kind of ecosystem, but wine grapes need special conditions. Perhaps you should take a road trip starting in San Diego all the way to Eureka. Be sure to stop in the Napa Sonoma Mendocino Valley, and enjoy the legacy of the families dedicated to home, family, and their stewardship to the earth. Take pictures as you go, just to remind you.

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