Gabriel García Márquez Movies

Based on Nobel Prize-winning author Gabriel García Márquez's novel of the same name, director Mike Newell's Love in the Time of Cholera details a passionate love triangle that unfolds in turn-of-the-century South America. Oscar-winning Pianist scribe Ronald Harwood adapts the story of two young lovers who bide their time for years while anxiously awaiting the day they can finally be together. Through marriages, affairs, careers, and deaths, the couple never loses hope that destiny will unite them in the end. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Based on the novel of Gabriel Garcia Marquez by the same name, but set in the forties, the film is a reflection on life and its illusions by the Mexican master Arturo Ripstein. In a small coastal town in Mexico in the late 1940's, an obstinate colonel of the anticlerical Cristeros War keeps waiting for the pension that has been promised to him but never delivered. Every Friday, he goes down to the docks, dressed in his best suit in anticipation of the arrival of the letter announcing his pension. Everyone knows that he is waiting in vain, but he refuses to face reality, even though, deep in his heart, he knows that the letter will never arrive. His wife is suffering from asthma; their son Agustin was killed by the fascists; and the roof over their head will soon be taken away because of the unpaid mortgage. Yet the Colonel stands by his dream, refusing to give up despite poverty and hunger. He knows that if he lets go, there is nothing else left. His wife Lola proposes to sell the cock, which is the only thing left behind from their son. But the Colonel does not want to give up the fighting cock, which he believes will win one day. The story is rendered in a simple and straightforward narrative style unlike Ripstein's earlier work, which is more baroque, or Marquez's magical realist style. Repeated close-ups accentuate the damages of a long and hopeless wait on a person's inner strength. Veteran Fernando Lujan is remarkable as the Colonel, but Spanish Marisa Paredes shines as the wife who suffers in dignity. Salma Hayek has a brief appearance as the prostitute who had a relationship with Agustin. In competition at the 52nd Cannes Film Festival, 1999. ~ Gönül Dönmez-Colin, All Movie Guide

Medieval morality and the modern approach to justice are only two of the many threads that weave through this drama of crime and passion. When a schoolteacher in a Chinese village is found dead in an alley one morning, there is no doubt who did the deed. Two brothers readily confess to having murdered him. What the investigator needs to determine is the boys' motive. How could they possibly be incited to murder anyone so brutally. It turns out that the teacher's fiancee was the best friend of the boys' sister, and somehow the teacher deflowered the girl. In the village world the boys inhabit, this is a far more serious crime than the boys' subsequent ritualized execution of the teacher. This tale of passion in a Chinese village is based on a Latin American novel by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Chronicle of a Death Foretold. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

An elderly man with wings is blown off course during a tropical storm in this symbolic fantasy. The Old Man (Fernando Birri) lands near a Caribbean island where a poor family gives him shelter in a chicken coop. Father Gonzaga (Luis Alberto Ramirez) is the skeptical priest who rushes to damn the creature. Soon the Old Man is the subject of curiosity seekers as Elisinda (Daisy Granados) and Pelayo (Asdrubal Melendez) start charging admission. A traveling carnival of human oddities camps near the Old Man as people flock to see the show. The Old Man is reduced to being an unwanted pet, and after six years, he mends his wings and flies away. Nudity, simulated sex with a spider woman, and the ugliness of human exploitation definitely put this fantasy in a category not for children. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

Made for Spanish television, Fable of the Beautiful Pigeon Fancier (Fabula de la Bella Palomera) stars Claudia Ohana in the title role. Though she is a wife and mother, she is ardently pursued by powerful businessman Ney Latorraca, who uses Ohana's beloved pigeons to transmit messages of love to her. Eventually, a passionate affair results, with Latorraca claiming his "property" by painting a message on Ohana's abdomen. It is thus only a matter of time before the woman's husband tumbles to the clandestine romance. Gabriel Garcia Marquez co-adapted the script of Fable of the Beautiful Pigeon Fancier from his own short story. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Mexican/Spanish El Verano de La Senora Forbes (Summer of Miss Forbes) features Hanna Schygulla in the leading role. Schygulla plays a German governess, in charge of two Mexican boys while their parents are absent. The kids despise the governess, who is rigid and tyrannical. They go so far as to plan her murder, but find they don't need to kill her: beset with dozens of personal demons, the woman has been spiritually dead for years. One of six late-1980s Spanish TV adaptations of the novels of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, El Verano de la Senora Forbes was directed by Jaime Humberto Hermosillo, of Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands fame. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This suspenseful Italian crime drama is set in a Colombian river town and chronicles the series of events that led up to murder. Based on a novel by distinguished author Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the tale begins in the present as a middle-aged doctor returns to the village after a twenty-year absence to investigate the murder that occurred just before he left. A flashback ensues. All the trouble began when a wealthy general's son came to town searching for a bride. He found an appropriate girl and was very happy until he discovered that his bride was not a virgin. In a terrible rage he sent the poor girl back to her family where her father beat her into revealing her lover's name. Her twin brothers then set out to punish the guilty fellow, a much-despised womanizer. Though the entire town knew that the brothers planned to kill him, no one intervened. Strangely, the victim died without a fight. The story jumps back to the present to witness the return of the general's son. He runs into his former fiancee and quietly hands back all of the letters she had written him over the years. Not a single one is opened. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

This tantalizing blend of eroticism and mysticism was adapted from a novel by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Erendira (Claudia Ohana) has a strange and wondrous vision; shortly afterward, her grandmother's house burns down. The grandmother (Irene Papas) gets her revenge by forcing Erendira to become a prostitute. As the "johns" become increasingly prosperous (along with grandma), Erendira keeps her wits about her by experiencing even more bizarre visions. Veteran European character actor Michel Lonsdale has an effective cameo as a hypocritical senator. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

With a screenplay by the Nobel Prize-winning author Gabriel García Márquez and noted Mexican director Jaime Humberto Hermosillo, who also directed this film, there are several inventive and whimsical facets to this story about an ill-fated love. When Hector (Hector Bonilla) comes back from his usual night of burglarizing houses, he is surprised to find his former love María (María Rojo) in his apartment, dressed in a wedding gown. María breaks down as she tells Hector how she has been jilted at the altar, and later she turns on some tap water and milk comes pouring out -- for María is a real magician. The two soon re-establish their affection for each other, and María convinces Hector to give up his life as a cat burglar and join her in putting on a magic show. Hector agrees, and the couple begin a new career together. But just as their show becomes better known, María's van breaks down on the road and she hitches a ride with a busload of very strange-looking people, disembarking at an insane asylum. The more she argues that she is perfectly sane, the less anyone believes her -- sanity is not easily recognizable, apparently. So María is literally imprisoned, while Hector becomes convinced she has left him for good. Time goes by. Will Hector find María at the asylum? And if so, what happens then? Classic García-Márquez all the way, the political and sociological aspects of this ultimately absurd situation are told with a wry sense of humor. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

When a young boy steals billiard balls from a local saloon, a stranger is charged with the crime. The local layabouts find there is no reason to hang out at the bar without being able to shoot pool, and the boy entertains thoughts of forming a gang to steal more billiard balls in hopes of making money. Watch for Luis Buñuel in the role of a local priest in this social drama that alludes to the evils of ignorance and poverty. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide