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Arturo Ripstein
La Virgen de la Lujuria/ Virgin of Lust (2002) is one of Ripstein's
most linear, relaxed and conventional films. While his trademark obsession
with sex and death are still pervasive, here they are treated according to
the cliches of noir cinema.
The very fragmented narrative
(most scenes last a few seconds) recalls the style of comics and photonovelas.
Furthermore,
sometimes the characters sing about their lives and actions in operatic tones,
as if mocking the operettas of the era.
The film is shot in dark, strong tones that
recall the 1930s and, occasionally, the era is also evoked via brief
poster-like scenes with colorful subtitles.
The plot is the quintessential
melodrama centered on a femme fatale and the slave-master relationship that
subjugates a weak, ordinary, pointless man, but most of the story is told
by the scenography.
An angry/scared crowd is banging and shaking a locked gate. The story is set
in the years after the Spanish civil war (1930s).
Nacho the lonely waiter of a quiet and classy downtown cafe`. He is treated
like a slave by his rude boss, who claims to be of pure Spanish origins
(whereas the waiter has indio blood).
Brief disconnected scenes introduce Nacho's private life.
He lives a simple life, helping his neighbor Raquel with her small sewing jobs
(her daughter, who sleeps with her, is a prostitute). His only hobbies are
masturbating in the basement while staring at some erotic pictures and
kissing the feet of a statue of the madonna. He also masturbates thinking of
killing Franco. One morning he finds a gorgeous prostitute, Lola, behind the
counter of the cafe`. She had sex with Gardenia, a masked wrestler whom
everybody believes gay, and she is desperate to get more. She is also
drunk and stoned. Nacho's boss finds them and gets furious. He locks the
woman in a room and promises to call the police. Nacho (a cartoon-like
simpleton) begs the woman to take shelter in his apartment, otherwise the
police could deport her. In the following days, Nacho takes care of Lola,
who is sick, but she is proud and still obsessed with Gardenia. She claims
to be German-Russian, a former circus artist, but her accent is clearly Spanish.
She tells Nacho the unlikely ordeal to kill Franco. She lets Nacho kiss her
feet, but Nacho does not venture beyond that, respecting her like a saint.
This only infuriates her. She resents his faithfulness to his hideous boss
and his servile behavior in life. Nacho even goes out looking for Gardenia,
as that is Lola's wish. Eventually, Lola leaves him, not only ungrateful
but also suicidal.
Nacho resumes his masturbating practices and one night is caught by an older
man, also from Spain, who is moving into the apartment upstairs. He (Gimeno)
and his friends are penniless revolutionaries who lost the civil war to Franco.
They take the habit of spending their evenings at the cafe` till very late
hours, ordering little or nothing.
Lola is known to have lost her mind in the opium dens of Chinatown. Nacho
tries to forget (or remember) by hiring a prostitute to kiss her feet.
Gimeno respects Nacho's obsession, and Nacho secretely feeds him.
Gimeno decides to share the basement with Nacho: Nacho can keep masturbating,
while Gimeno, a professional photographer, will use it to set up a tragedy
about the Spanish revolution, with help from Nacho and Raquel to create the
costumes.
Nacho looks for Lola in Chinatown, scouring dark rooms full of stoned people.
Nacho finds out accidentally who Gardenia is: he is the chef of the cafe`,
Gerardo. Now Nacho dreams of becoming a wrestler, hoping that this would
conquer Lola's heart. Gerardo's dressing room is where Nacho sees Lola again:
she is desperate for Gardenia's love, but he despises her and warns Nacho
against getting addicted to her. But Nacho can't help it, and she moves back
into his apartment, treating him in ever more humiliating ways. Nacho even
volunteers all of his savings to convince Gardenia to flee with Lola to
Hollywood. Eventually, Gardenia disappears, and Lola becomes even more
neurotic. Nacho finds her a job at the cafe`, hoping that this would heal
her depression, but, instead, she flirts with the customers, and Nacho has
to suffer the torments of jealousy. Despite the fact that they live together,
Nacho never tries to have sex with her. He is happy to kiss her feet, even
when she humiliates him in front of everybody.
Eventually she leaves him again, for a man whom she believes to be Gardenia.
Nacho volunteers to kill Franco, again hoping that this will get him Lola's
love. This turns into Gimeno's tragedy, performed in the basement. A
sequence of silent scenes with subtitles (in the style of the old photonovelas)
tells how the humble waiter becomes a hero by killing the dictator. (When he
shoots Franco, the crowd rushes out and is trapped by the gate of the first
scene). But Lola is trapped again in her addiction to drugs and to Gardenia.
Nacho burns his erotic pictures (which Lola hated). The story becomes more
and more oneiric. Lola enters the cafe` and kisses Nacho's feet: Nacho's
imaginary ending to Gimeno's tragedy?
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