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janierocks
Reviews
Piñero (2001)
Focuses on the less interesting part of the whole story.
I'm not an expert on Pinero or even on the Nuyorican Poets Cafe. However, what I do know is that the Poets Cafe was the first place for Nuyoricans to really celebrate their experiences--of being caught between worlds, or traveling between them. Sure, the experience on the "Loisaida" often include the down and out, but the spirit of protest is a strong element in much of the poetry of this time, adding depth to the shopping lists of ways to survive on the street. Not all the poets had pathetic lives such as Pinero, either. This side of the Poets Cafe, and the poetry movement of the 70s/80s, is not evident in the film.
This said, the movie isn't really about the Poets Cafe. It's about Pinero. But if you're going to do a biography on someone who was so passionate, you're going to be tying together their personal conflicts and struggles with what they stood for, and I couldn't find much of this element in the movie. Instead, Pinero seems to undermine the fighting cause, if there is one presented here, with his attitude, which is most often driven by the search for (or coming down from) drugs. Okay, so he needs a liver, too, and his mother died. At least the film stops short of having him point fingers at those events as responsible for his behavior. Instead, he does the most damage to himself. But, as other commenters point out, you're left wondering why the tragedy was story-worthy, especially if you don't know the story of the Poets Cafe and how influential and popular it still is. If you know the story of his life, then I suppose it's nice to see it honored formally, but I think the movie cheapened it. If the failures of his life were a function of being nuyorican, tell us so. If they don't have anything to do with it, tell us how being nuyorican, or starting the poets cafe, didn't save him from his human weaknesses.
Excellent acting, strange production, nicely juxtaposed story line--though it jumps back and forth in time, it feels like a poem, and you experience the gist. It's the story that grated on me and left me curious--how DID he ever get the place started if he was such a "bad boy"?