"I don't Want to Talk About It"
                          ("De Eso No Se Habla")
                             A film review by
                           Linda Lopez McAlister
                           on "The Women's Show"
                         WMNF-FM (88.5), Tampa, FL
                            November 5, 1994

    Yesterday the 1994 Cine World Film Festival, sponsored by the Sarasota
Film Society, opened at the Burns Court Cinema in Sarasota with two
outstanding films by women directors. I was unable to get there early enough
to see "El Crimen de Cuenca" ("The Crime of Cuenca") by Spanish filmmaker
Pilar Miro, but Women's Show colleague and film aficianada Mary Glenney did
see it and was very impressed; she recommends that you try to catch the repeat
showing at 2:00 this afternoon. Dorothy and I got there for the early evening
showing of Argentine director Maria Luisa Bemberg's "I Don't Want to Talk
About It" ("De Eso No Se Habla"). Up until now I've only seen one of Bemberg's
films (a fascinating biography of the 17th C. Mexican nun Sor Juana de la Cruz
called "Yo, la mas pobre de todas"  ("I, the poorest of all women")
that was playing in Havana when I was there in 1991), although another one
"Camila" was nominated for an Academy Award in the foreign film category in the
mid-1980s.   Bemberg is something of a late bloomer.  Only after she had
raised an upper-class Argentinian family and then divorced her husband
did she embark on a career as a filmmaker.

   That takes courage and "I Don't Want to Talk about It" is a film about
courage; it is dedicated "to all the people who have the courage to be
different in order to be themselves." It takes place in the 1920s and '30s in
a small Argentine coastal town. A prosperous young widow, Leonor (Luisina
Brando) realizes that her little daughter Carlotita (Alejandra Podesta) is a
dwarf; through an act of sheer will she goes out in the dead of night and
destroys a neighbor's ornamental garden statues of dwarfs and then has a book
burning "Gulliver's Travels," "Tom Thumb," "Snow White and the Seven
you-know-whats." When the priest tries to talk to her about this, she declares
firmly and with finality "I don't want to talk about it." And she
doesn't--ever. She does everything in her power to ignore Carlotita's
deformity, willfully declaring her incomprehension when anyone tries to bring
up the subject; suffering enormous pain when something happens that calls
attention to it; and, as we find out, going to great len gths to prevent
Carlota from ever coming into contact with anyone else like her, either in
books or in reality.

     By the time Carlotita is a teenager she's, bright, well- educated,
good-natured, loving, unashamed of her difference--and just a tiny bit
willful, insisting on calling herself Charlotte in stead of Carlotita and
disobeying her mother's wishes that she downplay her size and shape. To this
town has come a man in his seventies--a suave, handsome, wealthy, urbane,
courtly bachelor Don Ludovico D'Andrea (Marcello Mastroiano) who befriends
mother and daughter, and who, brings Charlotte her dream birthday gift, a
beautiful white stallion to ride. One day when Leonor urges him to peek
through a window to see Charlotte's joy as she rides the horse in an indoor
ring, Ludovico is overcome by a passionate desire for Charlotte, a desire so
taboo-ridden that it, at first, sends him into a severe decline and later
forces him to leave town temporarily until he gets up the courage to return
and seek her hand in marriage. But even then we're not through with these
characters making courageous efforts to live their lives as they are,
regardless of how different from the norm that is. The way the story works
itself out, culminating in Charlotte's courageous decision to be herself is
moving and important.

    This fable is brought to the screen with both intensity and good humor by
a mature and wise filmmaker very much in command of her medium. It will be
shown again on Sunday afternoon at 2:30. I really recommend it. (But be sure
to call the festival before you go--(813)388-2441--to make sure there are
still tickets available.

       For the WMNF Women's Show this has been Linda Lopez McAlister on Women
and Film.