NZIFF Film Review: "Bleak Street" ("La calle de la amargura") (2015).

From the director of Seduction and Deep Crimson comes Bleak Street (La calle de la amargura). This Mexican crime film directed by Arturo Ripstein, and written by Paz Alicia Garciadiego. In the early morning hours, two elderly whores go back to their hovels. They are not tired from working. They are tired of not doing do. One has problems at home with her teenage daughter and her cross dressing husband. The other, with her loneliness. But that night, they have a date to celebrate the victory in the ring of two wrestlers, twin midgets wearing masks. At the hourly hotel, in order to rob the tiny men of their earnings, they drug them with eye drops. But the dose proves fatal. They murder them unintentionally. Scared and confused, they decide to hide from the police and run away together to live, as they always have, on Bleak Street.

The film stars Alberto Estrella, Silvia Pasquel, Arcelia Ramirez, and Patricia Reyes Spíndola. Pasquel and Ramirez treat the heroines' atonements and friendships with great feeling, but there's a dark side to the film's poignancy, because the Woman's every encounter may be her last.

Bleak Street doesn't cover any new terrain for Ripstein - which some may complain about - but its terrain that he knows well. Ripstein applies his usual degree of cinematic imagination to the sordid tale. This monstrous love story serves up film noir at its most darkly authentic: it plays for keeps. This is a chilling tale by one of Mexico's most respected directors. The overriding fault for this art-house film was that it is not poetic. There are more virtues than debits to Bleak Street, and Crime fans should be relatively satisfied. The film turns the showdown narrative of so many oaters into an actively intelligent, darkly funny and no less suspenseful rumination on the pull of the horizon versus the ill wind at the back. On the whole, sharp dramatization and direct performances suffice to put the story's themes across more urgently than expected. It's a swift slow burn of a film, the story of a man who once got pushed too far with terrible results now getting pushed too far again, with results that are, as the title suggests, sure to be worse. At once repellant and enthralling, exotic and familiar, but never anything short of fascinating. Ripstein is more interested in the women's relationships with the people outside of work than with their clients, though we do get to see them living out some of their patrons' kinky desires. It's about forcing us to think about people we never would otherwise and seeing their struggles and humanity. What gives the film its haunting pull, as well as its feminist undercurrent, is the filmmaker's palpable compassion for these women. There's plenty of flesh on display but the stories are far from erotic. It emphasizes setting over character and plot; and it casts a mood that's both eerie and entrancing. Overall, the film is worthwhile, but more interesting than good.

Simon says Bleak Street (La calle de la amargura) receives:

Also, see my review for Happy Hour (ハッピーアワー).