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a partire da schemi narrativi abusati, Ruiz sovverte le convenzioni del
far cinema, di come rappresentare concetti astratti. Barocco e sconnesso,
il racconto e` ambiguo e molteplice, reminiscent del cinema-menzogna di Welles.
Tres Tristes Tigres (1969) e` un film neorealista e melodrammatico
(un fratello induce la sorella a prostituirsi per far carriera).
Nadie Djo Nada (1971) segue un gruppo di intellettuali delusi, lontani
dalla realta` del loro paese, che passano il tempo in polemiche culturali,
ignari di cosa succeda alla gente comune.
El Tango del viudo (1972) era stato il suo primo film, ma completato
soltanto cinque anni dopo.
Dialogos de Exilados (1974) e` un fotoromanzo che attacca le
contraddizioni degli esiliati politici.
La Vocazione Sospesa () attacca il dogmatismo e la burocrazia della chiesa.
Territory (1981) e` una parabola amara che narra come un gruppo di
amici, perduti in un bosco, si riduca al cannibalismo.
La Ville Des Pirates (1983) esplora mito e fiaba con uno stile
iper-realista, in un tripudio di luci espressioniste, barocchismi, decor
esotico. E` un flusso di frammenti stereotipici, di storie-fantasme che si
incrociano in un luogo convenzionale, in una sorta di labirinto o babele
alla Borges.
Les Trois Cavronnes du Matelot (1982) e` un delirio di inquadrature
(un centinaio) costruito sulla trama banale del racconto di un marinaio.
L'Hypothese Du Tableau Vole (1978)
Inquadratura immobile su quartiere deserto.
Un intervistatore parla dei quadri di un pittore mentre il collezionista
risponde alle sue domande su quei quadri. Sono soltanto sei perche' il
settimo scomparve, all'apice dello scandalo da essi suscitato.
Il collezionista racconta come le autorita`, spaventate da cio` che
il quadro avrebbe rivelato, interruppero il lavoro del
pittore, e come il pittore si difese sostenendo che il quadro non
esisteva, era soltanto l'impressione lasciata da tableaux vivants.
Per dimostrare che il pittore disse la verita`,
il collezionista fa vedere all'intervistatore i tableaux vivants che
ha ricreato nella sua proprieta`.
Il collezionista svela all'intervistatore i significati segreti dei quadri,
girando intorno ai personaggi che li impersonano in casa sua, analizzando
ogni dettaglio con il fine raziocinio di uno Sherlock Holmes.
Gli allestimenti rivelano cosi` che alcuni quadri non sono altro che giochi di
specchi. Un romanzo aiuta a decifrare altri quadri come cronache di una
torbida storia di passioni borghesi che culmino` in una cerimonia satanica
e con il sacrificio di un giovane omosessuale.
I movimenti dei personaggi di quadro in quadro tracciano traiettorie
circolari nell'aria, che, combinate fra di loro, definiscono una sfera.
L'ultimo quadro rappresenta pertanto un culto esoterico, che forse fu la
vera causa dello scandalo.
Il collezionista ha cosi` svelato il mistero, ma e` ancora insoddisfatto.
SI aggira fra i suoi personaggi, fra le scene che ha allestito nel suo
palazzo, alla ricerca del senso perduto di quei dipinti.
Film filosofico, che ha un solo protagonista vivo in un mondo di
personaggi finti, o una moltitudine di protagonisti che il personaggio
deve comprendere.
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On Top of the Whale (1982)
The Golden Boat (1990)
Trois Vies & Une Seule Mort/ Three Lives and Only One Death (1996)
Shattered Image (1998)
Genealogies d'un crime/ Genealogies of a Crime (1998)
Le Temps Retrouve/ Time Regained (1999)
# Com‚die de l'innocence/ Comedy of Innocence (2000)
A Savage Soul (2002)
Ce Jour-La'/ That Day (2003) is a political apologue disguised as
a macabre comedy. The protagonists are the social classes (the servant,
the state, the capitalist). The capitalists are gone mad and are murdering
each other. The servant is faithful and diligent, although involuntarily helps
sustain capitalism, even as capitalism goes mad. The state is exploiting
everybody to increase its own power, as indifferent to moral values as the
capitalists. The police are ridiculed as ineffective idiots. And the joke
is on the state, which, at the end, is arrested precisely by the idiots that
it has put in charge of protecting the order.
Livia is a simple young woman, a poet at heart, who smiles at life, but she
is a bit insane. She sits, alone, on a bench in the mist when a man on a
bicycle approaches her. She tells him that "tomorrow" is going to be the
day of her life: it's written in the runes. A group of patients
from the nearby mental institution comes out of the mist and passes them:
one of them stares at her for a while. Livia asks the stranger to lick
her leg, then a car picks her up. The driver is the faithful servant of
her family. He drives her to their villa, where six characters are waiting
for Livia on the steps, as if they are plotting against her. They are
getting together to celebrate the birthday of the patriarch, Mr Harald,
who cannot attend because he is on a plane. His lover Leone is taking charge.
Assembled are their friends HUbus (who is ill), Bernardette, and Livia's
brothers Roland and Luc.
A military convoy rolls into a town.
In the mental hospital, a patient is freed by his "friend",
who tells him that the great day has come and the order came from God himself.
All the doors of the hospital are open: the patient walks out undisturbed.
The guests leave Livia alone at the villa with the faithful servant.
The military convoy stops to let school children cross the street.
The radio announces that a dangerous psychopath has escaped from the hospital.
The chief of police is informed, but his assistant advises him to do nothing.
They seem to assume that it is all part of a ploy for some larger purposes,
and that somehow it has to do with Mr Harald being on the brink of bankruptcy.
Livia talks to her father on the phone. It turns out that her father is
surrounded by Roland, Luc, Hubus and Bernardette. They are conspiring against
her, who is the "heiress". Mr Harald then phones the faithful servant and finds
an excuse to send him away. The servant is reluctant to leave Livia alone,
but obeys when Mr Harald tells him that Luc will spend the day with her sister.
Before leaving, the servant tells Livia to pray because the house is inhabited
by the devil. Livia, alone, plays with the echoes. The madman knocks at the
door. He shaves himself while he waits for Livia to come at the door. He has
followed an address that was given to him by the man who freed him. He is
the same madman who stared at her when she was sitting on the bench with
the stranger. Suddenly, he starts chasing her around the house, determined
to carry out God's order to kill her. Livia grabs a hammer and hits him.
Luc enters the house with a gun and Livia, mistaking him for another madman,
kills him with the hammer.
In the meantime, the chief of police and his helper are playing billiard and
having lunch, determined not to hurry to investigate the escape.
They see Hubus and Bernardette chat. The whole restaurant gossips.
Mr Harald forbids a sauce called Salsox from that restaurant, which he owns.
But every guest has his own bottle of Salsox that they carry with them.
Livia walks in the garden, happy, still clinging to her bloody hammer.
Someone approaches the fence of the garden:
it is the strangers who met her the day before. She is happy to see him and
begs him to climb the fence. Then they make love in the bushes.
The psychopath has recovered and is looking for
her. He grabs the hammer that she has dropped and kills the stranger.
Then the madman and Livia sit on the steps, as if nothing happened between
them. Hubus and Bernardette arrive. Hubus has a heart attack and dies.
The madman chases Bernardette in the garden and eventually stabs her to death.
Livia is singing, indifferent. Finally, the madman and the madwoman introduce
each other properly. He is still holding the bloody knife, but she doesn't
seem afraid anymore. She now believes he is an angel.
Her father is asking the police to check out his house, but the police chief
and his assistance don't fall for it: they sense it is all a ploy, and refuse
to be dragged into it. The owner of the restaurant (and pretty much any
person in the restaurant) seems to know more and better than the police.
Mr Harald also owns the asylum from which the madman escaped.
Mr Harald is basically ruined, while his daughter is going to inherit a
fortune from her mother. It turns out that Mr Harald gave his former wife
the company Salsox, and Salsox became a colossal success while his other
activities failed. Then his wife left him for another man, then this lover
killed her. Now Livia, her sole heir, stands to inherit a fortune. if the
daughter dies, then Luc inherits. If Luc also dies, the state takes everything.
Roland has now arrived to the house, holding a gun. He finds the dead bodies,
that the madman has diligently moved into the house. Roland and the madman
chase each other in the big villa, and eventually the madman prevails.
Livia, still convinced that the madman is an angel sent by God, cooks a nice
dinner for him. She sets the table for all the people in the house, alive and
dead. Then they dance at the sound of the cellular phones that are ringing their
tunes. Leone walks into the house, sees the dead people around the dining table,
and runs out in the street chased by the madman. A van drives over her and
kills her. The madman kills the driver and the passenger of the van, and then
carries everybody into the house. Livia is now upset that the psychopath is
killing so many people. The good news is that the psychopath is falling in
love with Livia and doesn't want to kill her anymore, even though God ordered
him so. Livia insinuates that maybe it was not God, it was the devil, who
ordered him to kill her. They kiss.
The military vehicles are still on the move.
The servant is driving back and gives his brother (whose expensive car
broke down) a ride back to town. His brother, who represents the state
(and is probably the man who freed the psychopath and ordered him to
kill Livia),
visits Mr Harald. He tells him that both Livia and Luc are being taken
care of (he also offers his condolences), and that the state is now the only
heir to his wife's fortune.
Mr Harald has to sign the papers: in return, all his debts will be paid
by the state. He has no choice but to sign.
The servant (the state's brother) calls: he has at the villa and has found
a lot of dead bodies. The madman wants to kill him too, but Livia stops him,
because the servant is "good" (unlike, evidently, the others). Livia
convinces the madman to return to the asylum and promises to come and visit him.
He really wanted to visit the zoo, but it turns out it is closed (a day of
mourning for a lioness that died). He is a changed man, healed by love.
After the madman departs, Mr Harald and the servant's brother arrive at
the villa. They find all the dead bodies around the dining table.
The brother, who represents the state, is shocked to find out
that Livia is still alive. There is no inheritance if Livia is still alive.
So he puts a gun in the hand of Mr Harald (Livia's own father).
Now they are all sitting around the table in the same positions as during
the birthday party, except that the father is sitting at his place
and everybody else is dead except Livia. The servant's brother puts pressure
on the father to kill his daughter, because this is in the supreme interest
of the state (and, implicitly, of his own career as a state bureaucrat).
Mr Harald lifts the gun but, instead, kills himself.
The State grabs the gun and is ready to fire on Livia, but the servant
stops him at gunpoint. His job is to protect her, and he is willing to kill
his own brother, the State, in order to fulfill his duty. In vain does his
brother remind him that the supreme duty is towards the State: the servant's
duty is towards the girl, no matter than she is mad.
At last, the police chief and his assistant arrive. They arrest the servant's
brother, the State. He laughs at the idea of the police arresting him ("you
don't know who I am"). And it is ironic that he gets arrested, since he has
not killed anyone, after all. But, ironically, they do arrest the real
culprit, because he is the one who engineered the madman's escape for the
purpose of killing Livia, even though the plan failed so badly that Livia
is the only one who was not killed. The joke is on the state.
Now the servant is alone with Livia, and Livia finally realizes that they
wanted to kill her. She is shocked that God wanted her dead. The servant
also explains that now she is rich: she owns the entire country. She is
only interested in the fact that she also owns the asylum and the zoo
(the place where the psychopath lives and the place that the psychopath
wants to visit). Livia has, indeed, lived the best day of her life: she
has fallen in love, and she has inherited what she needs to make her lover
happy.
The military convoy continues its march passing the long line of school
children.
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(Translation by/ Tradotto da xxx) Se sei interessato a tradurre questo pezzo, contattami
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