"Life wanted things this way, not me."
Absolutely loved this, and consider it a masterpiece from director Juan Bustillo Oro. In telling the story of how these two monks came to be at odds with one another via flashback, the film very stylishly utilizes Expressionist art, chiaroscuro shadowing, surrealism, and a variety of nifty camera work. The angles, tilts, handheld shots, slow zooms, soft focus, jump cuts, and wipe transitions are artistic and feel well ahead of their time, and I really must seek more of the work of avant-garde photographer Agustín Jiménez. The story is also multi-dimensional, with elements of romance, drama, guilt, and a different version of the same events ala Rashomon. It's not often that a film does so well in so many area, and it's the synthesis which makes it a treasure. Underrated, and one to look for.
86% - Audience
7.0Plot summary
In a Gothic-styled monastery, a monk named Javier sees the face of another monk, Juan, and suddenly attempts to bludgeon him to death with a heavy crucifix. Both men then relate their own versions of a story of romantic rivalry between them. Javier, a consumptive musician, fell in love with and was betrothed to Anita. When his old friend Juan appeared, he was ecstatic. But soon, it seemed that Juan was making a play for Anita. When Javier found them in an apparently compromising position, a tussle ensued, and Anita was accidentally shot and killed. The two versions of the story differ significantly in Juan's motivations and in the details of Anita's death. Both men later became monks, leading to their latest encounter. As Juan begins to recover from the blow, Javier is subjected to horrific hallucinations.
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Sexual Betrayal a La RASHOMON -- Almost Two Decades Earlier!
The Museum of Modern Art's latest Preservation & Restoration Festival has been featuring stuff from the 1970s and 1980s.... you know, stuff that's ONLY forty or so years old. Today they showed this one, a Mexican film by Juan Bustillo Oro. I have seen very few Mexican films.... very few Latin American films and since I will be giving away a lot of the key points....
SPOILERS
Carlos Vilatoro is a monk who has been coughing and hallucinating. The Prior tells a new transfer from a recently closed monastery, Victor Urruchua, to try to talk the Devil out of him. When he goes to see the sick brother, they recognize each other, and Carlos tries to kill Victor. When things calm down, they each give their confession of the events leading up to the event in turn: they had been best friends, but Victor had tried to rape Carlos' fiancee, Magda Haller, and then shoot Carlos, but had killed Magda instead. Victor's story differs in some significant details....
END SPOLERS
It's heavily influences by German cinema, what with the Cyclopean architecture of the monastery, the frequent Dutch Angles and the fact that one of the leads wears white and the other wears black, depending on who is telling the story. It might have been shot at Universal; certainly their horror cycle in this period used many of the same techniques, both in set design and camera work. In story technique, it reminded me strongly of RASHOMON
Although it was only 90 minutes long, the first half of the story seemed to drag. It seemed an ordinary story of betrayal, far too obviously foreshadowed by the framing events, but the second half paid off very well.
Caligari à la mexicana!
Who would have known that extreme Germanic expressionism was alive and well in the Mexican cinema of the mid-30's? This remarkable macabre melodrama has only recently been rediscovered in the rest of North America (see "Video Watchdog" #85 and Fab Press's anthology "Fear Without Frontiers"); had it not appeared in such isolated circumstances and been several years out of date in its own time, it would likely be looked on today as a seminal work. The style (both visually and in mise-en-scène) is pure UFA, with strong elements of early Lang, Wiene and Dreyer, and similar in design to many highly stylized early-talkie Hollywood chillers like "Murders in the Rue Morgue" and "Svengali". There are huge, high-ceilinged sets with rampant diagonal lines, thick venetian-blind style shadows, tilted angles, abrupt and shaky camera movements, strikingly artificial compositions. The performances are appropriately intense and highly mannered, as is the musical score when it intrudes. The hallucinatory climax, with the main character wildly playing a lush romantic melody on the pipe organ as a group of gargoyle-like monks looks on, is a marvel of shivery montage, reminiscent of Gance's "J'Accuse".
Equally significant is the story structure, which relates the same tale of romantic trespass and murder, in turn, from two diverse points of view, anticipating "Rashomon" by many years. In that vein, an extremely clever touch is having the first narrator dressed in white in the flashback (considering himself the "good guy") and his rival in black, then switching the colours for the rival's version of the story.
Although the print is not in the finest condition (and only available in Spanish),this is a must-see for connoisseurs.