Tag Archives: Marisa Paredes

Thinking Aloud About Film: Deep Crimson/ Profundo carmesí (Arturo Ripstein, Mexico, 1996)

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This is our eighth podcast on Arturo Ripstein films. Increased exposure has only increased our appreciation; and Deep Crimson seems the best of the films we’ve seen. Based on a true story that was then made into a film by Leonard Kastle in 1970 — The Honeymoon Killers — Deep Crimson has a very particular tone, black and funny, encased in the structures of feelings of 1940s popular romances, and edging them towards the savage and brutal as the film unfurls. It’s an extraordinary work. Why it’s so funny and so disturbing is the subject of the podcast.

 

The podcast can also be listened to on Spotify here: https://open.spotify.com/show/2zWZ7Egdy6xPCwHPHlOOaT

and on itunes here: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/first-impressions-thinking-aloud-about-film/id1548559546

The film’s opening, a woman enmeshed in romance.

A visit to Hold Back the Dawn, with Boyer and Olivia de Havilland

A wedding in a cemetery

Precise and telling compositions

Our previous podcasts on Arturo Ripstein films may be accessed here:

El Castillo de la pureza/ Castle Of Purity (1972)

EL SANTO OFICIO/ THE HOLY OFFICE / THE HOLY INQUISITION (1974)

La viuda negra/ The Black Widow (1977)

The Place Without Limits/ El lugar sin limites (1978)

Cadena perpetua/ Life Sentence (1979)

El Imperio de la fortuna/ The Realm of Fortune (1986)

José Arroyo

 

Thinking Aloud About Film: Pedro Almodóvar Podcast No. 3: Entre Tinieblas/ Dark Habits

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In our third podcast on Almodóvar’s work we discuss his third film, ENTRE TINIEBLAS/ DARK HABITS (1983), the first film he did for a commercial production company, Tesauro SA. A very funny and subversive film, the plot revolves around a bolero singer (Cristina S. Pascual) whose boyfriend has overdosed on heroin and who finds shelter in the convent of The Humble Redeemers. The Mother Superior (Julieta Serrano) is a heroin addict who’s in love with her; Sister Manure (Marisa Paredes) takes acid to aid her visions; Sister Lost (Carmen Maura) has a fetish for cleanliness and a tiger for a pet; Sister Rat (Chus Lampreave) is a best selling writer of trash novels based on the lives of the young girls who pass by the convent, though her sister (Eva Siva) is stealing her credit and her money; Sister Snake (Lina Canalejas) is in love with her confessor, who really wants to be a fashion designer. The film is a combination of noir, nun film, melodrama and musical all tied together by camp. Even Tarzan makes a coded appearance. It’s a film that would be very difficult if not impossible to make today. We discuss it’s context, boleros, camp, Almodóvar’s skill with actors, the chicas Almodóvar, a largely feminine space where men in drag nonetheless feature… and much more. A modest box office hit but his greatest success to that point and proof of his developing skills in mise-en-scène.

The podcast may be listened to below:

The podcast can also be listened to on Spotify here: https://open.spotify.com/show/2zWZ7Egdy6xPCwHPHlOOaT

and on itunes here: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/first-impressions-thinking-aloud-about-film/id1548559546

 

José Arroyo

The Flower of My Secret gifs

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A marriage fracturing in The Flower of My Secret:

I’ve now rewatched all of Almodóvar’s films to The Flower of My Secret, and note that transvestites and/or transexuals appear in all of his films, without exception, often in important roles, often with cis women playing trans women or vice-versa (he deploys this interchangeability meaningfully). Even in this bit, which is really otherwise unnecessary to the story the film is telling, he finds a place for them. Almodóvar’s world is a world with Trans. This was of course also true of Warhol and Waters but they were underground and/or avant-garde. I can’t think of another mainstream figure, a pillar of European Art Cinema for the last forty years, of which this can be said.

José Arroyo