''Lo que le pasó a Santiago'' (; "What Happened to Santiago") is a 1989 Puerto Rican film written and directed by
Jacobo Morales
Jacobo Morales (born 12 November 1934) is a Puerto Rican actor, poet, writer, playwright, filmmaker, and auteur.Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. In 2011 AMPAS revised its rules to make films from U.S. territories such as Puerto Rico ineligible for the Foreign Language Film award.
Plot
Santiago, a widowed man visits his wife at the cemetery. Near the location of the filming of a movie, Santiago meets a mysterious woman. She is very pleasant, and talks to him. They exchange gifts, but then upon saying their good-byes, she doesn't tell him her name and he wonders if he'll ever see her again. They bump into each other again and the woman continues to be pleasant and tells him her name is Angelina. Angelina informs him that she has been watching him and saw when he mailed a letter to someone.
Santiago, the widowed man and his daughter often argue, mainly because his daughter is going through a divorce and her father, Santiago prefers she not divorce. Later as the daughter and her husband argue over divorce matters in the presence of their young son, Santiago engages the boy in conversation about snow: that the only time he saw snow was when it was bought to
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico (; abbreviated PR; tnq, Boriken, ''Borinquen''), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ( es, link=yes, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit=Free Associated State of Puerto Rico), is a Caribbean island and unincorporated ...
by plane. Santiago, looks for employment but is interviewed by someone who is obviously not interested in hiring him because of his age.
The third time Santiago and Angelina meet, they listen to traditional guitar music and dance. Following that, they go to a park and row a boat through a waterway. Angelina is always smiling and happy.
Then Santiago's daughter continues to be argumentative. At the airport, she and her father Santiago are talking about her move to New York City for 3 months and that she was planning to leave her son with her husband, Gerard, but her husband has not shown up at the airport. Frustrated, she leaves her son with her father telling the boy to behave and obey his (father). As Santiago is leaving with his sad grandson, the boy's father shows up to take him.
One day while sitting at home, Santiago unexpectedly receives a call on his landline from Angelina. Santiago had never given her his phone number and she explains that she had to call every person in the phone book with his name to find him. They make plans to meet in San Juan. Eddie, Santiago's son, is depressed and tells his father that he has given away his guitar because of his depression. In a pep talk, Santiago tells his son they have to make it, and that they'll travel together because traveling will be therapeutic. Then when Eddie notices the scenic beach painting on his father's wall, the gift from Angelina, and asks him about it, Santiago tells his son that he's very happy because he has met Angelina. However, worried about a lack of information about Angelina, Santiago has secretly hired an investigator to help him learn more about her.
Early the next morning, Santiago and Angelina are at her home, a big, beautiful, Spanish-style home and, upon entering, Santiago finds the home is immaculate, with large majestic windows, and a functioning old phonograph. As the phonograph music plays, Santiago peruses the black-and-white photos around her home. She prepares and they have breakfast while they share more about themselves. She tells him her grandfather fought for
Spain
, image_flag = Bandera de España.svg
, image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg
, national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond")
, national_anthem = (English: "Royal March")
, i ...
in the
Spanish-American war
Spanish Americans ( es, españoles estadounidenses, ''hispanoestadounidenses'', or ''hispanonorteamericanos'') are Americans whose ancestry originates wholly or partly from Spain. They are the longest-established European American group in th ...
, and built the home. In turn, he tells her no one in his family was famous, except maybe his great-aunt who was a bootlegger during prohibition; in summary that he's widowed, and retired after having worked as an accountant for forty years, that he has three children, and is now here with her. They walk through the fields enjoying the day until they get caught in a rainstorm. They change into bathrobes and proceed to her bedroom and she offers him a massage with rubbing alcohol, preferably on the bed. They remove their bathrobes and later, as they lay together, she tells him that he should keep his eyes closed because, were he to open them, he would know that she's a ghost.
They depart after professing their love for each other. Santiago gets lost driving in the rain in the dark while reflecting on the fact that he has seen Angelina's home, and the flowers in her garden before, in his dreams. His car gets stuck in the mud and upon existing his car, he slips down a ravine, but finds the perfect stick to get his car out of the mud. As his son paces back and forth, before a ticking grandfather clock, Santiago finally arrives home and lets him know what happened, explaining that Angelina's house is the most beautiful house on the most spectacular land he's ever seen.
After leaving the hospital for a bout of pneumonia, Santiago is met, at his home, by the investigator who shares surprising information about Angelina's real life. It turns out she had a tragic life and, after hearing it, Santiago says he remembers reading the story in the papers. As a daughter of an important influential family, Lela (Angelina's real name) was forced to give up her baby daughter who'd been born out of wedlock. For this reason, she shot her father, paralyzing him, then she ended up in and out of mental institutions. After hearing the news, Santiago is saddened. In his next visit, he finds her elegantly dressed, as always. Santiago doesn't let Angelina know that he knows the truth about her and they, presumably, continue their relationship.
Jacobo Morales
Jacobo Morales (born 12 November 1934) is a Puerto Rican actor, poet, writer, playwright, filmmaker, and auteur.René Monclova
René Monclova (born c. 1959) is a Puerto Rican actor. Monclova has been popular both with theater and television audiences. Mainly a comedian, Monclova has also played serious characters, a fact that might escape the minds of many Puerto Ricans, ...
- Eddie
*
Johanna Rosaly
Raquel Johanna Rosaly Guillermety (born January 13, 1948) is a Puerto Rican actress, singer, and television host.
Early years
Johanna Rosaly was born in Santurce, a district of San Juan. In 1956 at the age of eight, she started taking acting le ...
Jacobo Morales
Jacobo Morales (born 12 November 1934) is a Puerto Rican actor, poet, writer, playwright, filmmaker, and auteur.Neil Simon
Marvin Neil Simon (July 4, 1927 – August 26, 2018) was an American playwright, screenwriter and author. He wrote more than 30 plays and nearly the same number of movie screenplays, mostly film adaptations of his plays. He has received mo ...
script, which featured Tommy Muñiz. As they were in rehearsals, Morales realized that Muñiz was the "singular performer" he wanted for his film project. He said in a 2014 interview that since he had the idea "very clear, I wrote it really fast; like a little over a month". Morales invited Muñiz' son, Pedro, to serve as associate producer while Morales' wife, Blanca Silvia Eró, served as executive producer. Morales also chose Gladys Rodríguez to play opposite Muñiz, for considering her a very "ductile" actress with which he had worked for decades before. Morales said of Rodríguez, "the experiences with her had been very positive and we had good communication. Her role not only suited her for her physicality, but also for her temperament."
Morales described the film as a very "simple" film with "great performances from Tommy, Gladys, and
René Monclova
René Monclova (born c. 1959) is a Puerto Rican actor. Monclova has been popular both with theater and television audiences. Mainly a comedian, Monclova has also played serious characters, a fact that might escape the minds of many Puerto Ricans, ...
", who played Muñíz' son. The production had a budget of $500,000. Although Morales wrote the script fairly quickly, filming was delayed for around 40 days. According to Morales, at the time it was the only one of his feature films that had gone over its initially planned shooting schedule. It was filmed in
Old San Juan
Old San Juan ( es, Viejo San Juan) is a historic district located at the "northwest triangle" of the islet of San Juan. Its area roughly correlates to the Ballajá, Catedral, Marina, Mercado, San Cristóbal, and San Francisco sub-barrios (s ...
The film's original release was delayed because of the passage of Hurricane Hugo in September 1989. It was ultimately released in November of the same year. After receiving critical acclaim, the film was also exhibited in various international festivals, including the
Festival de Cine Iberoamericano de Huelva
The Huelva Ibero-American Film Festival ( es, links=no, Festival de Cine Iberoamericano de Huelva), held since 1975 in Huelva, Spain, is the oldest film festival in Europe dedicated to the Ibero-American cinema.
During the first editions, it was ...
in Spain, the Latin American Film Festival in Washington, and the Festival du Cinéma Espagnol de Nantes in France. According to Morales, he wasn't "thinking in success, but in a story that grabbed my attention. I always try to do everything in function of the story. The star is the film".
Reception
''Lo que le pasó a Santiago'' was generally well received by critics and audiences. Although it doesn't have an official rating on
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
because of the lack of certified critics reviews, it still holds an approval rating of 81% among the audience based on 417 ratings. In 1990, the film was nominated for the
Best Foreign Language Film
This is a list of categories of awards commonly awarded through organizations that bestow film awards, including those presented by various film, festivals, and people's awards.
Best Actor/Best Actress
*See Best Actor#Film awards, Best Actress#F ...
at the 62nd Academy Awards. According to Morales, it was associate producer, Pedro Muñiz, who prompted them to submit the film for consideration. Before submitting it to the Academy, they had to budget the addition of English subtitles, which they did in "record time" and the film was successfully submitted before the January 5, 1990 deadline. However, it lost to Giuseppe Tornatore's '' Cinema Paradiso''.
List of films set in Puerto Rico
This is a partial List of films set in Puerto Rico; either the movie's plot includes that island, the movie has been filmed there, or both. Certain movies that are supposed to be set in Cuba are filmed in Puerto Rico because of the U.S. embargo a ...
List of submissions to the 62nd Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film
This is a list of submissions to the 62nd Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film. The Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film was created in 1956 by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
The Academy of Motion Picture Art ...
Odnoklassniki
Odnoklassniki ( rus, Одноклассники, t=Classmates) is a social network service used mainly in Russia and former Soviet Republics. The site was developed by Albert Popkov and launched on March 4, 2006.
The website currently has more ...