LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHOLERA

UK, 2007, 139 minutes, Colour.
Javier Badim, Giovanna Mezzogiorno, Benjamin Bratt, Catalina Sandina Moreno, John Leguizamo, Liev Schreiber, Hector Elizondo, Fernanda Montenegro.
Directed by Mike Newell.

This is a sweeping film, ranging from 1879 to the 1930s. It is based on a novel by Nobel Prize winner for literature, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and has been adapted by prolific playwright and screenwriter, Ronald Harwood (whose work included an Oscar for The Pianist and the adaptation of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly). It has been directed by Mike Newell who has made films in all genres including Four Weddings and a Funeral, Donnie Brasco and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire).

Garcia Marquez was born in Colombia, in the city of Cartegena where this story is set. The film was made on location there and captures the atmosphere of the Latin American city, its history and culture and the rivers and countryside.

The title is arresting (and, maybe, for some, offputting). The film is certainly about love, about unrequited love with its obsession and passion. There are also outbreaks of the cholera epidemic. How is this a metaphor? That love is like an outbreak of infection, making the patient suffer, difficult to heal and to recuperate from…?

Because the time span of the action is so long and the film runs almost two and a half hours, one expects to settle into the film and absorb atmosphere at something of a leisurely pace, with space to contemplate and reflect. However, the way the screenplay is written does not lead to this pace. Rather, there are many episodes, some of them very brief, so that the film is like a patchwork at times, moving from one event quickly to another. So many of the episodes seem like snippets. And, in some of the snippets there are moments which may have been in the novel but suddenly appear and seem disconnected from the flow of the film. It is the same with some characters (like the Chinese who suddenly wins a poetry prize and is booed by the citizens – and that is all).

That said, there is a lot to enjoy in the film, watching how the metaphor works itself out. The weight of the film is carried by Javier Bardem as Florentino, the young telegram clerk who falls in love at first sight with Ermina (Giovanna Mezzogiorno) and she with him. But, her rough and ambitious father (John Lequizamo) intervenes and exiles her. By the time she returns it is too late and she tells Florentino that their love was an illusion. She marries the doctor who treats her (Benjamin Bratt) and moves into another sphere in the city. In the meantime, Florentino pines for her but also becomes highly promiscuous as a way of assuaging his sorrow and loss. He also becomes rich, inheriting a river boat company from his uncle (Hector Elizondo).

And 51 years pass and the doctor dies (he dies in the opening scene of the film and most of the film is flashback). What can now happen between Florentino and Ermina?

The film is full of many more characters and incidents. It does not all quite ‘click’ but there are a number of pleasures in watching it.

1.The status of Gabriel Garcia Marquez as a writer, literature, the Nobel Prize, from Colombia?

2.Ronald Harewood’s adaptation of the novel, compression, a version of the novel? An interpretation?

3.The use of Colombia locations, the city of Cartagena, the 19th century, the early 20th century, the changes over fifty years? The homes, church, cemetery, the homes of the wealthy, of the poor, the lavish theatre, the boat company, the countryside, the boat and the river? Authentic? Beautiful? The atmospheric score?

4.Latin-American history in the 19th century, settlement, the Spanish tradition, local traditions, civil wars, cholera epidemics, their effect?

5.The imagery of love and cholera (and the Spanish word for anger: colera)? Both infections, consuming diseases, their effect?

6.The opening, the doctor, the beauty, the parrot, his death, his wife and her concern? Florentino Ariza with the woman, hearing the bell toll, his hurrying to Fermina, his proposal, waiting the fifty-one years, her angry outburst and banishing him?

7.The flashbacks, the fifty-one years, Florentino and his delivering telegrams, earnest, living with his mother, his absent father, his uncle? His seeing Fermina and her aunt, writing the long letters, following Fermina, the delivery, the rendezvous for collecting the letters, the aunt coming to the telegram office, their talking, his proposal, the aunt urging Fermina to accept? The development of the young people? Characters?

8.Love, love at first sight, all-consuming, Florentino keeping himself for Fermina, passion, obsession?

9.Fermina’s father, ambitious, rough, hostile to Florentino, forbidding her to see him, his treatment, banishing the aunt, Fermina sent into exile, working in the country and her happiness? Her return, her illness, Doctor Urbino coming to see her? His asking permission to court her? The father being happy with the proposal?

10.Fermina over the years, her love, being away, telling Florentino that love was an illusion, her coldness? Her persuading herself that this was true? The illness, the doctor, his attentions, her not being willing, her eventually marrying him? The honeymoon in Paris, the return, her pregnancy? Her life with Doctor Urbino? Her coldness and resistance to him, his infidelity, her demanding the truth, his honesty and directness, her reaction, going to see the woman and watching the separation? Her ageing?

11.Florentino, older (and the change of actors)? His relationship with his mother, his work for telegrams, on the boat, the sexual encounter and his naivety, the effect on him, his keeping a diary of his sexual encounters, making notes, the over six hundred, assuaging his feelings but not extinguishing his love for Fermina, the poetry competition, the encounter with the buxom woman, the young wife – and her husband killing her? The young girl, his continuing to see the women over the decades? The reaction of his mother, her losing her memory, her death and the funeral?

12.His work, going up-country, the return, talking with his uncle, his uncle explaining his father’s behaviour, the jobs, inheriting the company, his aims, to be rich and in society, poetry competitions? (And the interlude with the Chinese doctor winning the competition and the hostility of the audience?)

13.The passing of time, the changes, into the 21st century?

14.Coming again to the death of Doctor Urbino, Florentino’s proposal? The aftermath?

15.The letters, the poems, Florentino and Fermina’s gradual reluctance? Their meeting?

16.The discussions, coming together, the ride on the boat, the sexual fulfilment? The regrets from the past, the hopes for the future?