Arturo Ripstein has long been known as a brilliant film director, and he shows us why in Profundo Carmesi (Deep Crimson).
In this 1996 film, Ripstein, in collaboration with writer Paz Alicia Garciadiego, makes us feel uneasy and uncomfortable, largely because he concentrates on two deeply flawed characters who are exaggerated versions of ourselves. There is a pattern here that is basic to art: the identification of ourselves in characters who should be, if logic holds, dismissed as too repulsive by half.
Unless you live in a permanent Happy Sunshine Camp, all of us share the two characters' traits to one degree or another: jealousy, fantasy, yearning, self-absorption, greed, loneliness, desperation; the list goes on. The big difference is that most of us don't yield completely to our obsessions and allow them to overtake and ultimately destroy us.
The lead players in this film (set in late-1940s Mexico) are Coral (Regina Orozco), an obese nurse, dreamer and part-time embalmer who yearns for Happiness Ever After with the most masculine of heroes, and Nicolas (Daniel Gimenez Cacho), a two-bit swindler and self-styled 'ladies' man' who exploits vulnerable, lonely women for sex and profit through lonely-hearts ads.
Nicolas is, in other words, the opposite of what Coral believes she needs to 'complete' her life, yet she falls hopelessly in love with him. But it's not love at all, but a dreamworld of folly; neither of these characters has the faintest idea what love is.
Despite their repellent behaviour, they are not without viewer sympathy -- they are more delusional and sadly deranged than anything else. In other words, they're very human, and that's the key in this film: we don't want to watch these pathetic creatures, but we do. Ripstein knows that if we look too closely we can see familiar (and unpleasant) pieces of ourselves.
This is based on a true story, and once again I'm left to repeat those famous words: you couldn't make this stuff up. Art imitates life to be sure.
The photography (by Guillermo Granillo) is stunning in a 'washed-out' reddish tinge that complements its authentic 1940s 'feel'. David Mansfield's music (a repetitive piano riff) is haunting and adds a perfect tone to the film. The acting is first-rate, especially by Cacho as the whining, migraine-ridden manipulator who is so neurotically attached to his hairpiece that he never wants Coral to see him without it.
The only real failing in this film for me is background. These are two really undesirable characters, but we don't know how they got that way. In the summing up, it doesn't really matter. This is a riveting, fascinating film from beginning to end.
In this 1996 film, Ripstein, in collaboration with writer Paz Alicia Garciadiego, makes us feel uneasy and uncomfortable, largely because he concentrates on two deeply flawed characters who are exaggerated versions of ourselves. There is a pattern here that is basic to art: the identification of ourselves in characters who should be, if logic holds, dismissed as too repulsive by half.
Unless you live in a permanent Happy Sunshine Camp, all of us share the two characters' traits to one degree or another: jealousy, fantasy, yearning, self-absorption, greed, loneliness, desperation; the list goes on. The big difference is that most of us don't yield completely to our obsessions and allow them to overtake and ultimately destroy us.
The lead players in this film (set in late-1940s Mexico) are Coral (Regina Orozco), an obese nurse, dreamer and part-time embalmer who yearns for Happiness Ever After with the most masculine of heroes, and Nicolas (Daniel Gimenez Cacho), a two-bit swindler and self-styled 'ladies' man' who exploits vulnerable, lonely women for sex and profit through lonely-hearts ads.
Nicolas is, in other words, the opposite of what Coral believes she needs to 'complete' her life, yet she falls hopelessly in love with him. But it's not love at all, but a dreamworld of folly; neither of these characters has the faintest idea what love is.
Despite their repellent behaviour, they are not without viewer sympathy -- they are more delusional and sadly deranged than anything else. In other words, they're very human, and that's the key in this film: we don't want to watch these pathetic creatures, but we do. Ripstein knows that if we look too closely we can see familiar (and unpleasant) pieces of ourselves.
This is based on a true story, and once again I'm left to repeat those famous words: you couldn't make this stuff up. Art imitates life to be sure.
The photography (by Guillermo Granillo) is stunning in a 'washed-out' reddish tinge that complements its authentic 1940s 'feel'. David Mansfield's music (a repetitive piano riff) is haunting and adds a perfect tone to the film. The acting is first-rate, especially by Cacho as the whining, migraine-ridden manipulator who is so neurotically attached to his hairpiece that he never wants Coral to see him without it.
The only real failing in this film for me is background. These are two really undesirable characters, but we don't know how they got that way. In the summing up, it doesn't really matter. This is a riveting, fascinating film from beginning to end.