Introduction
Arturo Ripstein y Rosen (born December 13, 1943) is a Mexican film director.
Life and career
Ripstein got his break into movies working as an uncredited assistant director for Luis Buñuel. In 1965, he directed his first feature, Tiempo de morir. Written by Carlos Fuentes and Gabriel García Márquez, it began a tradition of making independent films written by high-profile Latin-American authors. His 1981 film Seduction was entered into the 12th Moscow International Film Festival. His 1989 film Love Lies was entered into the 16th Moscow International Film Festival.
In 1997, Ripstein won the National Prize of Arts and Sciences, the second filmmaker after Buñuel to do so.
Some of Ripstein's films, especially the earlier ones, "highlighted characters beset by futile compulsions to escape [their] destinies". Many of his films are shot in tawdry interiors, with bleak brown color schemes, and seedy pathetic characters who manage to achieve a hint of pathos and dignity. Así es la vida, according to Jonathan Crow, "boldly reworks the ancient Greek drama Medea, employing a dizzying array of flashbacks and Brechtian devices". Deep Crimson, according to the New York Times, is "a ferociously anti-romantic portrait of an obese nurse and a seedy small-time gigolo whose bungling scheme to swindle a succession of lonely women out of their life savings turns into a killing spree."
Selected filmography
- The Castle of Purity (1973)
- The Holy Office (1974)
- Foxtrot (1976)
- La viuda negra (1977)
- The Place Without Limits (El lugar sin límites) (1978)
- La tía Alejandra (1979)
- Seduction (1981)
- Rastro de muerte (1981)
- El imperio de la fortuna (1986)
- Mentiras piadosas (1989)
- Simplemente María (1989) TV
- Woman of the Port (1991)
- The Beginning and the End (1993)
- The Queen of the Night (1994)
- Deep Crimson (Profundo Carmesi) (1996)
- El evangelio de las maravillas (1998)
- No One Writes to the Colonel (1999)
- Such Is Life (2000)
- La perdición de los hombres (2000)
- La virgen de la lujuria (2002)
- El carnaval de Sodoma (2006)
- Las razones del corazón (2011)
- Bleak Street (2015)