Las buenas hierbas (Mexico 2010)
Dir. María Novaro
October 11, 2012 - ENGLISH SUBTITLES
Synopsis. Dhalia works for an alternative radio station as she collects boyfriends and words, not yet knowing what to do with them. Lovingly, she raises Cosmo, her 2 year-old child. Laia is Dhalia’s mother, an ethnobotanist in charge of the Botanical Gardens in Mexico’s University, with an extensive body of work and field research. Blanquita has a secret life: her teenage granddaughter, dead a long time ago, lingers around in a variety of ways that only Blanquita can perceive. Lala experiences some disturbing moments and Dhalia realizes something is wrong with her mother. When Lala is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease she asks her daughter to help her out “before her brain gets completely disorganized.” She gives Dhalia her latest research on plants and herbal remedies “that cure the human soul” according to the Mexican pre-columbian tradition. Dhalia is thus submerged in a compelling journey into her mother’s mind and memories, as well as into her own identity. Her journey into the chemistry of the plants and the chemistry of the brain is embraced by her herbs and flowers, infusions and rituals, cactuses, tree barks and ancient remedies, buzzing insects, rocks, mushrooms, and the almost magical variety of forms in which nature manifests itself as a comfort for human emotions and the inevitability of death.
María Novaro
The most successful woman director of Mexican Cinema studied Sociology and then Film at the National University of Mexico (UNAM). International attention was drawn to her with her first student film An Island Surrounded by Water (1984) a short that won several prizes and was acquired by the Museum of Modern Art in New York. After a series of winning short films (Azul celeste, 1987, among others) she made her first feature Lola (1989) for which she won the OCIC (Catholic Critics) Award in the Berlin Film Festival. Her second feature Danzón (1991), won international acclaim and worldwide distribution after screening at the Directors' Fortnight in Cannes. It received the most enthusiastic reviews. María Novaro shot her third feature on the Mexican-American border (The Garden of Eden, 1994, Venezia Film Festival) and an adventurous road movie (Without a Trace, 2000, San Sebastian Film Festival) alongside with a number of shorts and documentaries. The Good Herbs is her fifth full-length feature, and it won 8 awards at the Guadalajara Film Festival in Mexico.
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