#the psychologist character is fucking kickass kudos to him and his singular scene

[breserker]

so for the books (and my own benefit) i need to watch a lot of golden age of mexican cinema films, of that which i'm the most familiar with Pedro Infante's stuff. it's been slow going because none of this shit is very accessible and at this point in my life I understand Japanese wayyyy the hell better than whatever Spanish I left behind but it'll have to do when there are films that have no subtitles, english, spanish, or otherwise (weeps)

anyway one film i grew up with was La Tercera Palabra (1955) which is not dissimilar to My Fair Lady in some regards. unfortunately while this film was uploaded to youtube about 2 years ago and has nearly a million views, the most recent printing of the film is a 2003 DVD and the criterion collection has like. 1, soon 2 films from this era of Mexican history (for a total of 12 Mexican films at least one if not two of which are del toro's which, don't get me wrong dude. favorite living director. BUT, you feel me. when their French and Japanese and Italian lists sprawl for 90, 100, 200 entries and then there's this wholeeee classical era of a neighboring country's films not--ok rant for a different time)

point being, i THOUGHT the dvd i grew up with, that 2003 printing, had subtitles, if not in english then in spanish. probably not in english. i put in a request at my library like "hey can you find this film with english subs for me please bc it's not just me but my roommate wants to watch it after i hyped it up and the criterion collection--okay RANT FOR ANOTHER TIME". this occurred at 2am. 2 hours later i realize in despair no that 2003 dvd doesn't have eng subs, no release of the film has eng subs anywhere and i'm suddenly struck with the horror that i've only ever seen the film in pure spanish when i thought i had a guideline. so i send another despairing letter to the library like "please disregard that. i'm not drunk but i'm in despair."

well they got it for me anyway, same DVD from my childhood. i tottered home with it yesterday and popped it in and watched it and reader there were no spanish subs either. PURE 1955 audio quality spanish. how did i watch this as a kid.

it was extremely painful to watch as an adult. film is a visual medium so i did understand a lot of story beats, like, you know, i know they're falling in love in this scene. i have no idea why though. some jokes i got. but they were also easy to get. i understood the gist of the plot because i had seen it before (and no thanks to wikipedia, look at this awful stub of an english page. it lists only Sara Garcia as starring, but she's not EITHER of the two main roles, one of which is Marga Lopez (the protagonist) the other of which is Pedro Fucking Infante. yes i have plans to dress up that page at some point because christ this is bad)

either way it's still a fantastic film imo. you can watch it here if you like. the benefit to my viewing is that it's almost 1:1 how Vel watches the film on his tia's massive VHS collection of pedro infante movies, complete with "i get the film and some of the spanish but i can't quote anything nor truly understand the artistry of the dialogue".