{"id":39,"date":"2018-02-22T23:39:17","date_gmt":"2018-02-23T04:39:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.scranton.edu\/hist327\/?p=39"},"modified":"2018-02-22T23:39:17","modified_gmt":"2018-02-23T04:39:17","slug":"analysis-of-cinco-dias-sin-nora-by-matthew-barrett","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.scranton.edu\/hist327\/2018\/02\/22\/analysis-of-cinco-dias-sin-nora-by-matthew-barrett\/","title":{"rendered":"Analysis of Cinco d\u00edas sin Nora by Matthew Barrett\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"The quasi-dramatic Mexican comedy <\/span>Cinco d\u00edas sin Nora<\/em>, directed by Mariana Chenillo, tastefully blends dark humor into the death of Nora Kurtz. Nora\u2019s ex-husband Jos\u00e9 ventures over to her apartment to find that Nora had overdosed on medication in her final suicide attempt. However, Nora\u2019s suicide strikes suspicion in Jos\u00e9 after too may coincidental events unfold; almost as if Nora killed herself simply to manipulate her ex-husband Jos\u00e9 one last time. The film takes a dramatic turn as Jos\u00e9 accidentally finds an old photograph depicting his ex-wife with another man from the time of their marriage, causing Jos\u00e9 to question the relationship he began with Nora in the first place.<\/span><\/p>\n

Cinco d\u00edas sin Nora <\/em>is subtly hilarious. The protagonist Jos\u00e9 Kurtz, portrays an \u201cI don\u2019t want to be bothered\u201d attitude which is ironic because Jos\u00e9 is nothing but bothered and burdened throughout the entire film. Although divorced, Jos\u00e9 and Nora allude to a stereotypical old married couple<\/em> who argue and endlessly suspect each other. A prime example would be Jos\u00e9 finding his deceased ex-wife\u2019s sticky-note reminders annoying and then retaliating against Nora by mixing and moving the reminders around. By the end of the film, however, I noticed a major theme that connects to our Race in Latin American History course, cultural unity<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Race is an inherent part of a culture. Culture becomes especially important when investigating the racial-cultural identity known as mestizaje<\/em>. A great example of this theme, cultural unity<\/em>, stands out during the last moments of the film when the Kurtz family is sitting down for Passover dinner. This family meal is quite a change from the continuous conflict between people of different religions and cultures. Jos\u00e9 and his family are of European descent and belong to Jewish faith with the exception of Jos\u00e9\u2019s atheistic views. The Kurtz\u2019s maid is faithfully Christian and likely of indigenous descent. The humorous conflict that arises between the different cultures is what makes Cinco d\u00edas sin Nora <\/em>so darkly comical. Serving a rabbi and Jos\u00e9\u2019s son Reuben pizza topped with bacon and sausage is disrespectful, not to mention that it\u2019s currently during the holiday of Passover. To further spite his ex-wife, Jos\u00e9 attempts to have Nora buried by a Christian burial service causing much grief in the family. In the ending, however, Jos\u00e9 attempts to mend his relationship with his family by giving up his own burial plot shortly after the Kurtz family experiences shameful burial attempt. The meal sharing at the end of the film in which each Kurtz member and the maid are joyfully participating in the meal illustrates the theme of cultural unity<\/em>. Different people joining together for something as humble as holiday dinner fits right along the description of mestizaje.<\/em> Jos\u00e9 participating in the meal [during Passover] shows his family that he respects his son\u2019s faith despite his own beliefs. This dinner reunited the Kurtz family, mending the broken bridges set in the past, sadistically put forth by the suicide of the grandmother Nora.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The quasi-dramatic Mexican comedy Cinco d\u00edas sin Nora, directed by Mariana Chenillo, tastefully blends dark humor into the death of Nora Kurtz. Nora\u2019s ex-husband Jos\u00e9 ventures over to her apartment to find that Nora had overdosed on medication in her final suicide attempt. However, Nora\u2019s suicide strikes suspicion in Jos\u00e9 after too may coincidental events […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":302,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-film"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.scranton.edu\/hist327\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.scranton.edu\/hist327\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.scranton.edu\/hist327\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.scranton.edu\/hist327\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/302"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.scranton.edu\/hist327\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sites.scranton.edu\/hist327\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42,"href":"https:\/\/sites.scranton.edu\/hist327\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39\/revisions\/42"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.scranton.edu\/hist327\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.scranton.edu\/hist327\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.scranton.edu\/hist327\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}