Search - The Magic Hour (Entre la Tarde y la Noche) on DVD

Good Spanish movie

Beth | Mesa, AZ United States | 04/15/2006

(3 out of 5 stars)

"After an unsuccessful marriage, a writer decides to visit her childhood for inspiration. The movie explores her past - her abusive father and her uncle, a drifter player that she dearly loves. The woman realizes that looking back over your past also means coming to terms with the parts you've repressed. Not surprisingly the adult parts are less interesting than the childhood ones but the movie balances itself out well ok.

The magic part has to do with the girl's overactive imagination. Frankly I was hoping for it to do with magic literally oh well."

Magic as escape

Latin Literature Lectora | Los Angeles, CA | 07/14/2008

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This movie, made in 1999, could have been a precursor to Pans's Labyrinth for all its similarities: a child uses her imagination as the only escape from brutality; someone she loves abandons her, someone is presumed guilty for an offence he did not commit, the child keeps a secret to protect an adult, and at the end everything makes more sense.

My version is from desert mountain media and the subtitles were great.

I thought the story was compelling, the actors were good, the "magic" made sense (rather than just functioning as an add-on), the photography was great, and the peek into Mexican culture was interesting to me (I am a gringuita). My only criticism is that the part in the beginning (at the hotel) didn't seem to me to fit into the overall movie as well as it could have, but it was really a relatively minor flaw, and it may not even be a flaw to others. I'm glad I bought it."

Looks like a good movie . . . if you understand Spanish

Artist & Author | Near Mt. Baker, WA | 12/27/2007

(3 out of 5 stars)

"It looks like this could be a good movie, but . . . (& for English speaking people, it is a BIG 'but') This movie has the worst subtitling of any movie I have ever seen, and I've watched subtitled movies in the hundreds because I am reserching a book on movies dealing with children. Time and time again the subtitles will have the first part of a sentence, and then just quit. If you understand Spanish, you can turn off the subtitles and enjoy what looks like it could be a good movie. If your Spanish is 'rusty' like me (it's been 15 years since I've use it much) you will get a little more out of the movie than one who doesn't understand it at all, but not enough to make it worth buying or renting this movie.

So, again I say, it looks like it could be a good movie about a childhood experience that affects the little girl's adult life, but I can't say positively for sure."