red straws and coffee cups

It is at the dinner table we find the Naranjo family, who individually has yet to take a step forward to assume the responsibility of fixing their paradoxical lives. It is through characterization, we-the viewers, can readily tell what brought about the change witnessed in the end. One can say that Martin Naranjo is the typical Spanish father, who loves his daughters more than anything in the world. Martin is a master chef who at his current age, is beginning to loose his taste. He relies on others to taste his food to make sure the quality is above par. He is still in shape, and still has an active sex drive –depicted to us by his medical check up. He is a sensible man, who understands the comings and goings of everyday life, but there is something about him that told me he is waiting for his daughters to stop relying on him, before its too late. Something about his look, told me he did not want his daughters to make the same mistake he made.

Martin’s cooking is defining quality that he has used as a way to express his love. With his loss of taste, Martin is beginning to loose his sense of his current reality. Once can argue that the loosing of his sense, Martin eventually began to see what he really wants from life. He is a man of smoothness; his cooking techniques transfer to his calm, cool, collected self. When it comes to dancing, women, and children, Martin is a cool cat. Through out the movie I could not help but think that Martin himself did not know what he wanted. That is until I saw the look in his eyes when he was around Yolanda. After that, Martin was just a man in love, who was balancing family, pain, and love at the same time.