Many thanks to reader C who posted her review of Exposed in the forum. She has given her permission to post it here.
Review of Exposed
Apart from scenes with the police & Mira Sorvino’s character, the film was basically in Spanish. It did go back & forth— mainly between English speaking police /African American gang members and the inhabitants of the Latino neighborhood.
There was only one scene that I found confusing but I did not, as some critics have asserted, find the movie as a whole confusing.
Ana was the lead character, with Keanu playing a much smaller role. With respect to the negative comments regarding Keanu’s lack of emotion, it was imperative to play the character as he did to depict HIS tragic background, his difficulties in connecting with people, his withdrawal from most everything (due to prior circumstances). The scene where he is speaking with his son by phone is very touching and explains a lot of his behavior.
The family scenes very clearly & accurately depict the multigenerational matriarchal family structure often seen in Latino culture. The film clearly lays out the loose boundaries between family members. The intense religion (Catholic in this case) is not at odds with people also being engaged in crime or gang activity.
Mysticism & Symbolism (M&S)** play a huge role in the Catholic Latino culture and as such, the movie capitalizes on this. Ana’s visions exemplifies the role of M&S in her upbringing & her belief system, in addition to it’s use as a coping mechanism.
The visions of Ana’s character and explanations via “miracle” or “vision” are her character’s way of surpassing the violence she personally experienced. It is a retelling of the events to the self so sense can be made. Ana appeared fragmented and could only cope by imposing a beautiful experience in her memory in lieu of tragedy & violence. (Repeated & extreme violence can cause a fragmentation of the self.)
It is neither an Oscar winning film nor a bad film. Ultimately I think a marketing campaign could have done wonders (in an interview that chief recently posted an executive, that green lit 47 Ronin and was replaced when Universal ‘s slate was changed to tents only, spoke of the absolute need for marketing)
Hope this didn’t give away too much. Linton screwed himself over by c/o of the cuts. BTW, the last name of person who plays a female detective/Keanu’s new partner, is Linton.
**not to be confused with Magical Realism which is a literary & film device often used in Latin America. Best example that comes to mind is “Like Water for Chocolate” (funny, funny, but clean erotic film) of which Ebert had a great explanation of Magical Realism (see below for general info & scholarly papers on this subject)
http://www.writing-world.com/sf/realism.shtml
www.stiba-malang.com/uploadbank/pustaka/…/MAGIC%20REALISM.p…
www.library.umaine.edu/theses/…/ravemeb2003.pdf
http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/like-water-for-chocolate-1993