A Love Story of All Times Romeo and Juliet and The West Side Story , both romantic sagas that unfold into a struggle between love and family tradition and ways. In the two stories a young girland a young man from different paths find each other and fall in love, and in both, theyare forbidden by either family to be together. In the agony of being forced to live apart the lovers eventually come to a point where they can no longer be without one another. Their love is so strong that regardless if they defy their families wish, they will doanything to be together, even if this includes death. These European and Americanstories of the tragic effect of a love so strong that it can kill sets the table for theMexican film Like Water For Chocolate. This movie tells about desire, love, andrebellion, and is centered around the love of Tita and Pedro, and the struggle of Titasfamily tradition that does all it can to keep them apart. In this movie we are given anopportunity to see how the attitudes of the characters change over time and how truelove, once revealed, can never be held.In the early years of the twentieth century, on a small ranch in Mexico, the storyof three sisters and their repressive mother unfolds, and Like Water For Chocolatebegins. Tita is the youngest daughter of Mama Elena, and, as such, because of a familytradition, she is forbidden to marry or have children until after her mother's death. Titais agreeable to this situation until she falls in love with the dashing young Pedro. Titagoes to her mother to tell her of Pedros intention to meet with her and ask for herdaughters and his loves hand in marriage. Mama Elena is angered by thisannouncement and upon meeting with Pedro and his father, she informs them that nosuch union between him and her daughter Tita is possible because of their familytradition. When Pedro learns that he cannot marry Tita, he agrees to an engagementwith her older sister, Rosaura, in the hope t...
