Broken Hearts (Corazones Rotos)

Running time: N/A

Northern California Premiere 

"They say hearts were made to be broken. Maybe because living in a large city is not an easy thing. Sometimes you're out of work, sometimes they break your soul."

Director Rafael Montero's extraordinary new film, Broken Hearts, is the story of numerous families existing in a housing development in Mexico City. The characters are professionals, academics, businesspeople and bureaucrats, who live and communicate to one another based on their being neighbors. Most of them are middle class, suffering the onslaught of the crisis that has led to the reduction of their purchasing power and has forced them to live hand-to-mouth.

Broken Hearts encapsulates the maverick spirit with a superb array of clever characters, adventurous editing, and a personal and highly original vision. At times comedic and at others painfully genuine, Montero's entrancing journey is a film that tells us in many ways the same storyÉthat of the heart.

Reviewed by Al Owens