Spotlight

Spotlight Date: 24-April-11
Spoiler Rating: Medium

The Mambo Kings (1992)

A few years before Big Night came out in 1996, The Mambo Kings offered a similarly touching drama about artistic brothers who immigrate to America in the 1950s. (It is based on Oscar Hijuelos' Pulitzer Prize-winning novel.*) While the later film is superior (superior to most films, in fact), The Mambo Kings remains a rewarding rental distinguished by its music and Armand Assante's performance in the lead.

Both movies begin as if they were going to focus on the brothers' quest for success and then branch out into more complex themes about love and family and surviving one's mistakes. The Mambo Kings offers slightly more back story, opening with a soap-operaish scene that explains why Cesar Castillo (Assante) takes his younger brother Nestor (Antonio Banderas) and hightails it out of Cuba. Then comes their attempt to become the most popular mambo act in New York. Cesar is a businessman as well as a musician, a promoter of Nestor's songwriting and trumpet-playing talent who refuses to let someone else manage their careers. He imagines taking the city by storm, playing all the hottest nightclubs and seducing all the sexiest women. Nestor, on the other hand, is a childlike and romantic soul who cannot forget the fiancée who broke his heart in Cuba. When his fantasies stray beyond her, they only go as far as a little club of his own where he can play his songs and not have to scrabble for a living.

Whether driven by lavish or modest ambition, both brothers are forced to work at a meat factory while waiting for their star to rise. The difference between what they want and what they get is a recurring aspect of their story, as is the difference between what each brother wants for or from the other. Nestor appears to have gotten over his lost love and landed on his feet when he marries Delores (Maruschka Detmers), but his unhappiness grows after he starts a family. It doesn't help that Cesar fell for Delores at first sight or that he keeps pushing Nestor towards a breakthrough that seems less and less likely to come. The brothers' meeting with Desi Arnaz (played by the Cuban icon's own son) and subsequent appearance on I Love Lucy don't open as many doors as Cesar hoped. After Nestor tries to take control for the first time, Cesar finally realizes that he misunderstood his brother's needs and the limitations of his own influence. This revelation results in the intimate pain and understanding that often mark honest films about families trying to shape their lives.

*See the Index by date for a list of other films in this month's series about movies based on Pulitzer Prize-winners.

Copyright © 2011 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.