Wednesday, August 14, 2013

Love In The Time of Cholera - Movie Review

I read the novel by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. It is a fascinating love story of a young man who waits fifty odd years for his love. The novel was very visual and its a great compliment to Garcia's writing that I remembered much of what happened in the story. Only great stories, well told, retain that impact.

Florentino Ariza, an average looking boy coming from a modest home where he lives with his mother, falls in love with Fermina Daza, the beautiful daughter of a mule trader who wants to climb the social ladder and quickly. The two young people exchange letters, meet secretly and so on and so on. Florentino is a romantic and a passionate one at that who has immense love for Fermina. He pours his heart out in each of his acts. Young Fermina reciprocates his love. But her father catches on and forbids their meetings. He takes Fermina away, leaving Florentino broken hearted.

When Fermina comes back she suddenly finds that she does not love the ordinary looking Florentino anymore. She settles for a marriage with the perfect and eligible doctor, Juvenal Urbino, who comes from a family of higher ground and of more money. Certainly her future is secure.

Florentino Ariza is not to be denied so easily. Despite a growing chronicle of women that he beds, he waits for Fermina. He becomes rich, having inherited his uncle's river boat company where he works. And the day Dr. Juvenal Urbino dies, Florentino lands up and professes his love for Fermina again. She asks him to get out but she cannot keep him out for long and the love story culminates finally in a most romantic ride along the river in Florentino's boats. The two are in their seventies then.

This is a love story that does not die. Florentino's love for Fermina outshines everything in this story and comes across well in the movie. His prowess with women, his charm, despite his average looks are possibly a diversion from the pain he feels at the separation from Fermina. She has a fairly stable relationship with her husband but nothing close to the explosive nature of Florentino Ariza's. But Fermina does set the record right in the end. All's well and that ends well.

One of the greatest love stories I have read. Or watched. 


No comments: