Hotel Coppelia

Excellent very well done. Bravo for the Dominican film industry. The story hits home. I remember my mother telling me about the 1965 war how it reach town far from Santo Domingo. I love The US and I have serve but we had some president who were horrible like Johnson, who lie just to get the US in this Internal conflict.

I liked this movie and was surprised by it. For once, Americans are the bad guys and depicted as Hollywood typically treats Germans, Russians, Arabs.... or anybody not aligned with US interests. To me, the biggest problem was to announce in the opening titles that the movie is "based on true events" mixing real historic characters with fictitious ones, and events that never happened or that happened very differently. It is like if Rambo would also indicate in the opening titles "based on true events". Most of the characters in the movie are fictitious. Tina Bazooka was a real one (there is even a beer that has her name) buy her death was very different than the one depicted in the movie.... to the point that she actually relocated to the US years after the events in 1965, and died when back to DR, at an old age. Also, as critical as you can be of US interventions, Americans would have not been directly involved in the "dirty" aspects of the war. For sure they would have had a group of local operatives do most of the dirty job, as it was done throughout South America in the 70's . No doubt, the prostitutes' from the brothel would have received Americans and their dollars with open (hands?). A brothel is probably the least realistic scenario for the depicted resistance events, which other than the background revolution and US invasion and intervention are fabrications and not very credible or historic. As it is the norm these days, men are the bad guys, women the heroines, and there are several openly gay characters. If this had been a completely fictional movie, I would have given it an 8/10. Due to the mix of history and fiction and some exaggerations/ stereotypes, I am giving it a 6/10.

Firstly it was not just the US, but Canada, Mexico, Brazil that participated in intervening in the 1965 Dominican civil war. For example Canadian troops were there from May 4, 1965 to October 22 1966, fighting the Cuban supplied and aligned communists. In fact the head of the Inter-American Peace Force (IAPF) sent to Dominican Republic was a Brazilian General. This intervention was about about separating two hyper violent warring sides, bot of which were killing civilians, by all historians accounts, the leftist killing the most. US troops were barely involved in any of the fighting. There were 23 total US casualties, mostly from sniper fire while those troops were protecting civil institutions. The violence was suppressed very quickly and US service personnel were a minority of the foreign troops there.

It is a movie that in its entirety we can consider it as good, however, the performances in many of the scenes lacked to convey the drama and intensity of the story. A very well structured script and direction, with the opportunity to stick even more to the real historical context.

Great film by the young Dominican Director Jose Maria Cabral, with the same raw brutality he depicted in Carpinteros. Through the lens of the 1965 American invasion of the the Dominican Republic, Cabral hits on some classic themes including the brutality and arrogance of a dominant force over a weak nation, the legacy of sexual exploitation within families and society, the misplaced emotional bonds that keep people together. The film could have used more editing as it loses its focus at times and the plot becomes a bit murky. This seems due to Cabral's inability to let go of some of the side stories and characters, which, while interesting, distract from the story's arc. Some of the characters are a bit cliché, including the general, who was reminiscent of Lieutenant Colonel Kilgore in "Apocalypse Now" (or is the cliché reality?). Nevertheless, as viewers we become invested in the film's characters and care what happens to them. As a Dominican, I found the presentation of that historical moment, and how it affected these people who were already on the fringes of society, intriguing. Kudos to Cabral for depicting his unique Dominican point of view in film. Give us more!

Let me start by saying this: I rather judge films according to the historical timeframe (age?) and effort of people which they come from. With that being said, I mean it wouldn't be fair to evaluate the 'young' Dominican Cinema and the actual very young Dominican filmaker (JMC, 32 years old) with the sane loop as we might use over many other countries and veteran exponents, to quote examples could be surely redundant, of course. Hotel Coppelia, well, it isn't a masterpiece; but, coming from a limited budget; based on an ambitious point of view out from the passion of a youngster who should have gathered a huge pile of evidence, consulted a bunch of local historians, rebuilt a believable location around which shooting basically the whole film? Give me a break! The guy did the homework so far so good. I feel grateful with this piece, despitefully, however, I must conclude there was a bit quite unnecessary too much sex though. Anyways, acting, specially Lumi Lizardo, is outstanding; edition and music: great; and, above all the narrative of survival in the Dominican Republic which comes from way way behind, even though in this specific case is shown from the perspective of those disfuncional band of women. Be patient world, the Dominican Cinema Is getting there!

Good movie. Entertaining for short times. Sometimes lose the rhythm but it is easy to recover it. Good performances from Lumy Lizardo and Jazz Vila. It's a drama that touches on historical events in the Dominican Republic in 1965. This film shows us the other perspective of the revolution fight. 8/10.

Dominican cinema is improving with every movie, specially José María's. This movie keep you up from the beginning to the end. Stress show up but in a profesional way. It is not a movie to watch 3 times but definitely 2 times :-).