Americans
are accustomed to equate Mexican food with enchiladas, tamales,
tortillas, refried beans, and Spanish rice with hot sauce.
But that is actually Tex-Mex food. In the film Tortilla
Soup, directed by María Ripoll, the real Mexican
cuisine is beautifully presented at meal after meal. We even
see how the food, including tortilla soup, is prepared by
master chef Martín Naranjo (played by Hector Elizondo)
of the mythical Nuevo Latino Restaurant in East Los Angeles.
The story centers on Martín, who is the single parent
of three daughters. His wife died some years earlier, whereupon
he lost his tastebuds and evidently started to dominate his
family, saying "While you’re in my house, you follow
my rules." Because he can no longer taste the food at
his restaurant, he relies on his business partner, Gomez (played
by Julio Oscar Mechoso), who later dies. Unobtrusively, he
is courting Yolanda (played by Constance Marie), but her mother
Hortensia (played by Raquel Welch) also has amorous designs
on Martín. At almost every meal, someone makes an announcement.
Carmen (played by Jacqueline Obradors) begins by announcing
that she has plunked down money for a condo in the Playa Del
Rey marina area of West Los Angeles, though at a later meal
she announces that she has been offered a job in Barcelona
and will rent the condo. One evening high school senior Maribel
(played by Tamara Mello), the youngest daughter, announces
that she is moving in with a Brazilian boyfriend, Andy (played
by Nikolai Kinski), though he never asked her, so that she
can discover her own identity, an obvious prescription for
later conflict. Eventually, chemistry schoolteacher Leticia
(played by Elizabeth Peña), the oldest, announces that
she is marrying a coach at her school (played by Paul Rodriguez).
With everyone moving away, Martín announces at another
meal that he has sold the house so that he can live in a smaller
one, and he then stuns Hortensia by announcing that the bride
in his new house will be Yolanda. Presumably the story could
end at this point, but instead there are several epilogs.
Maribel and Andy make up. Leticia becomes pregnant. One day
Martín takes Carmen to the airport so that she can
board the flight to Barcelona, but Martín is clearly
unhappy to lose her. In a few hours Carmen shows up for dinner,
having abandoned her opportunity in Barcelona, to become the
manager of the Nuevo Latino Restaurant so that her father
can enjoy his new bride as well as a well-deserved retirement.
A feel-good movie that shows the resilience of Mexican families
despite many tensions, the subtext is a sharp contrast with
dysfunctional Caucasian families portrayed in such films as
The Ice Storm (1997), whose director Ang Lee
adapted part of the screenplay for Tortilla Soup
from his Eat Drink Man Woman (1994), which
is set in Taipei (with the title Yin Shi Nan Nu). Those deciding
to see Tortilla Soup should not do so on an
empty stomach, however, without first making reservations
at an authentic Mexican restaurant. For a post-cinema meal,
Los Angeles patrons are especially fortunate in having Border
Grill, whose chefs created the actual food displayed in the
film, though they will wish that they could visit the well-stocked
kitchen and beautiful dining room in the Encino home provided
by the parents of La Brea Bakery’s proprietor for the
film. MH
I
want to comment on this film
