"Damn women are the ruination of men."

This
is the motto in Arturo
Ripstein's The
Ruination of Men, scripted by his wife Paz Alicia Garciadiego.
The film won the Golden Shell at San Sebastian, proving that Alejandro
Gonzales Inarritu (Amores Perros) is not the only director
from Mexico to dazzle festival audiences.
FilmFestivals.com caught up with this power couple at the Montpellier
Festival of Mediterranean Films.

Born in
Mexico in 1943, and the son of a movie producer, Arturo Ripstein is no
stranger to the movie business. After studying law and Art History, Ripstein
played several minor roles in films during the 60s. In 1962, he met Luis
Bunuel while filming The Exterminating Angel. He made his directing
debut in 1965 at the age of 21 with Tiempo de Morir (1965) based
on a screenplay by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. His filmography includes more
than 30 films, among them: La Reine de la Nuit (1994), Carmin
Profond (1996) and Pas de
Lettre pour le Colonel (in competition at Cannes in 1999).



Ripstein is an outspoken critic of intolerance, who fills his works with
descriptions of seclusion and "otherness." His cinema is, as he describes,
"one against reality." He looks truthfully at his characters, his country
and his culture, treating them as they are, rather than how they strive
to be. But Ripstein, it is also clear, likes melodrama. And this tendency
is his link with the Montpellier Festival, where he was honored this year.
As his wife says, "what could be more Judeo-Christian and Mediterranean
than Latin America?"





What role for you does a festival like Montpellier play?

Arturo
Ripstein: Festivals are very important globally, where American cinema
dominates. They serve as great launching boards for films. Forty years
ago, when I was a young director in Mexico, we could see films by John
Ford, Truffaut, and Louis Lamme, but also Wajda or Fellini. Today, there
is only Spielberg and his followers. It is increasingly difficult to see
non American film. Festivals give us the opportunity to exist, to move
audiences, to show them that there are other possibilities for cinema.
Montpellier really responds to these goals.



Recently another film by a Mexican director has been greeted with enormous
success: Amores Perros. Is there a Mexican Movie industry?



AR: No. There are industries and there are films. Mexican Cinema used
to be a very important industry after Spain and Argentina, producing between
80 and 100 films per year for decades. Today if there are a dozen films
produced, it's a good year. There are writers, but fewer filmmakers in
Mexico. Some have more luck than others in releasing their films, like
the director of Amores Perros. That said, it's a very interesting
film. We are more invisible than ever, but I have been very lucky.



You were the assistant to Luis Bunuel. What did you take from this
experience?



AR:
It's a legend that follows me! Its not true! My father was a producer
and friends with Bunuel. Because of this, when I was young, I was the
assistant on the shoot of The Exterminating Angel. I was his chauffeur,
and I did his shopping. Nothing more. But I studied him, observed him,
and this must have contributed to my training.



Certainly we can make a link between your last film, The Ruination
of Men, and The Young and the Damned by Bunuel? As if, in
these two films, extreme misery was one of the characters?



AR: Thank you! But Mexico is like that! The vast majority of Mexicans
live under harsh economic conditions. There are more than 40 million poor
people in Mexico. Bunuel films were very important to me. But in the case
of Ruination, I had thought initially of The Golden Age
and I think I succeeded as well as Bunuel, even if that's very pretentious
of me to say. Bunuel was trying to represent a certain reality: the loss
of love on the part of mothers, for example. But these mothers, their
primary worry, was to know when they could feed their children. I did
not need to look for that, I see this every day. Even this absurd feeling
is commonplace in Mexico. If I had filmed reality such as it is, no one
could have believed it. Mexico is a country where we are brutalized by
the police! Everything is possible - but not in movies!



Absurdity, derision … are these devices to combat misfortune?



Paz Alicia Garciadiego: At the time of writing, humor was necessary to
be able to approach more difficult subjects like the death of children
in Asi es la
Vida, for example. I wrote it this way for myself. During that
time, I did not think so much of the spectator. And Arturo and I love
dark humor.



How do you define your relationship, between your private lives together
and your work?

PAG:
It's symbiotic! We met very late. We shared the same world vision in spite
of very different political opinions. When we work together, we are like
a two-headed monster. We don't need to talk a lot, we understand each
other with few words, sometimes without even speaking.



Could you work with someone else?



PAG: It would be difficult. The few attempts were not very encouraging.




You filmed Ruination digitally. Did this create certain problems
in terms of adaptation?



AR: I think it is easier for old directors to adapt to new technologies
with smaller equipment. The trucks, the old huge cameras -- I know these!
I am tired of all that. The young directors, getting out of school, seek
prestige, material - they want the Director's chair!

Digital offers
many exciting options so that all is to be invented - the language, the
rules, the ethic. Traditional cinema reached its point of perfection.
It is up to us to unlearn the techniques of traditional cinema. It's a
passionate challenge.



Did you already have problems with censorship. Or with l'Eglise,
with La Veuve noire, for example (the love story between a priest
and his governess)!



AR: With l'Eglise, no. But the worst censorship is economic censorship
-- when a producer refuses a film because it is not profitable. Because
it is less expensive, digital allows us to challenge economic censorship,
by reducing the risks and democratizing the process.

David
Dibilio in Montpellier