Romeo and Juliet and The West Side Story , both romantic sagas that unfold into a struggle between love and family tradition and ways. In the two stories a young girl and a young man from different paths find each other and fall in love, and in both, they are forbidden by either family to be together. In the agony of being forced to live apart the lovers eventually come to a point where they can no longer be without one another. Their love is so strong that regardless if they defy their families wish, they will do anything to be together, even if this includes death. These European and American stories of the tragic effect of a love so strong that it can kill sets the table for the Mexican film Like Water For Chocolate.
This movie tells about desire, love, and rebellion, and is centered around the love of Tita and Pedro, and the struggle of Titas family tradition that does all it can to keep them apart. In this movie we are given an opportunity to see how the attitudes of the characters change over time and how true love, once revealed, can never be held. In the early years of the twentieth century, on a small ranch in Mexico, the story of three sisters and their repressive mother unfolds, and Like Water For Chocolate begins.
Tita is the youngest daughter of Mama Elena, and, as such, because of a family tradition, she is forbidden to marry or have children until after her mother’s death. Tita is agreeable to this situation until she falls in love with the dashing young Pedro. Tita goes to her mother to tell her of Pedros intention to meet with her and ask for her daughters and his loves hand in marriage. Mama Elena is angered by this announcement and upon meeting with Pedro and his father, she informs them that no such union between him and her daughter Tita is possible because of their family tradition.
When Pedro learns that he cannot marry Tita, he agrees to an engagement with her older sister, Rosaura, in the hope that by marrying her, he will have ample opportunities to spend with his real love. Tita cries bitter tears while making their wedding cake, and the wedding guests are overcome with feelings of sadness and memories of lost love when they eat the cake. Pedro and Rosaura live in the same house as Tita and Mama Elena and even though no one speaks a word about it, it is obvious to all that Pedro does not love Rosaura his wife, he only love Tita.
Constantly forbidden and scolded by Mama Elena, Tita is once again forced to supress her feelings for Pedro that are now to Tita, bigger than life. Although now, from the incident with the wedding cake Tita realizes that she is able to send her love and passion to Pedro through the food she cooks. On one occasion, Tita makes a dish using roses Muzquiz gave her, and her dinner guests all become sexually aroused. Her sister Gertrudis becomes so aroused that she catches afire, then runs off with a revolutionary. Caught up in the suspicion of his marriage intentions, Pedro finally after 3 months concemates his marriage between him and Rosaura and in this they have their first child, Nicholas.
Sicken by a harsh labor, Rosaura is unable to tend to her child and Tita is forced to care for the newborn, including breast feeding. Mama Elena is once again agitated by Tita and Pedro love and passion for one another that she suggests that Pedro and Rosaura move to San Antonio where they will be closer to the doctors. Not long after their relocation, word gets back to the family ranch that Nicholas has died due to starvation and illness because he would not eat. Tita is devastated by this and goes into a spell of insaneness and is sent away to a hospital where she meets and romantically connects with the doctor.
Tita returns to the ranch after the tragic death of her mother and just in enough time to deliver Rosaura and Pedros second child, Esperanza. This time Rosauras labor was worse than before and the doctor informs Pedro and Tita that she will not be able to have anymore children and because of this Esperanza is the next to inherit the family tradition. Once again living in the same house Tita and Pedro can not stop their attraction for one another even after Titas acceptance of the doctors wedding proposal. This time they go beyond the food and Tita loses her virginity to Pedro.
Tita, scared by the idea of carrying her sisters husbands child, she confides in Gertrudis that has returned for the first time and is now a general in the revolution and is married to one of her men. Gertrudis convinces Tita to tell Pedro, who is in love with the idea of having a child by Tita. Tita on the other hand was unable to enjoy this happening because of her dead mothers haunting and curse that she placed on Titas unborn child. Feed up with this, Tita finally stands up to her mother and tells her that she hates her and to go away forever.
This declaration by Tita forces her mother away forever but not before she gets Pedro and goes he to catch fire during a drunken celebration. Tita goes about caring for him and during this time, she finds out that she was not pregnant, she was just late, and goes about shutting out Pedro and professing her love for the doctor who she is soon to be married to. Her denial of her love for Pedro, of course does not work and she can not bring herself to marry the doctor. Rosaura eventually dies due to intestinal problems and the family tradition ends with Tita.
Tita and Pedro finally get together after 20 years when Pedros daughter Rosaura marries. Unfortunately, during their love making, Pedro dies and in the spirit of Romeo and Juliet and The West Side Story, Tita kills herself. An admittedly unusual title for a film, Like Water for Chocolate fits the mood — odd, playful, and sweet. It equates the boiling point of water for hot chocolate with the height of passion.
Told by Titas great grandniece this is a story with occasional surrealistic fantasy sequences interspersed between the commonplace goings-on of regular lives, and the film weaves a subtle spell of enchantment until a disappointing conclusion. I believe that this was one of the most beautiful stories of love and its power that has every been told. Even though this is a foreign movie with sub-titles, it is such a strong story that you easily forget that it is in Spanish. This is truly a Romantic.
