Bella, He Said

Bella, a 2006 film, only recently available on DVD, is a heart wrenching tale of personal growth and redemption. Director, writer Alejandro Gomez Monteverde presents his story in an intriguing series of revelations about the characters that always challenges our first impressions.

When the film opens, Jose, played by Eduardo Verástegui, is sitting on a beach his full beard and long flowing hair and his penetrating eyes give him a Christlke look. Jose's fascination with one girl playing in the surf with other children is disturbing enough tp cause a man to summon his children to his side, as if to protect them.
Then we flash back to an earlier day. Jose is being idolized by the neighborhood kids. He has just signed a contract to play professional soccer. He and his manager are leaving the New Jersey neighborhood, where his family lives, to attend his first big press conference. The old Caddy convertible rolls down the residential streets as the two men get into an animated conversation about Jose's impending interview. The music from the radio is hot salsa and the conversation becomes more intense. The speed of the car and the lack of attention portends disaster, but than we flash forward.

I'm not a huge fan of the flashback technique. There are many ways to set up history without going backwards and forwards multiple times. That being said, it is used about as well as can be done in this film. One of the things the director must do is establish in the minds of the viewer which era he is watching. Monteverde uses facial hair on Jose as a time setter. When we are back in the good old days he is relatively clean shaven. When we are in the present, he is full bearded. Also, and this one really bothered me, he wears his chefs white coat in every scene that is in the present. There were so many times I just wanted to scream," take that damn thing off!" As it happens, there is a scene toward the end of the film when his removal of tthe chef's coat is highly symbolic.

Chef's coat? We learn as the story develops that for whatever reason, the soccer career is over and Jose is laboring as the indispensable head chef in his bother Manny's upscale Manhattan restaurant. Manny is the hard driving boss with little concern for anything but his customers. Manny fires a waitress, Nina, played by Tammy Blanchard. In an impetuous move, Jose follows Nina to return a stuffed animal that has fallen out of her bag, only to find himself spending the entire day with her.

They slowly reveal their stories to each other as a bond grows between them. First it's their mutual problems with Manny, who is depicted as dictatorial and unfeeling. Than there is the problem of Nina's newly discovered pregnancy and what she will do with the situation. Later we get the story of why he is not playing soccer and why he is so insistent that she has her baby, even if she adopts the child to others.

The resolution of all these problems are built on the platfrm of the strong family Jose leans on and that welcomes Nina in her hour of need. Tearjerker? Yes. Maybe it's just that the characters in this film are slowly and strongly built that we care about them. Maybe it's a clear eyed look at one soluiton to an unwanted pregnancy. Maybe it's one more look at a successful immigrant family in a time that immigrants are once again in our long history of assimilation are under attack. For these and many more reasons, this is an excellent film and one that will stick with me for quiet a while.