Distinto Amanecer

Distinto Amanecer (Another Dawn). Mexico City: Films Mundiales, S.A., 1943. Productor, Emilio Gómez Muriel; director, Julio Bracho. With Andrea Palma, Pedro Armendáriz, Alberto Galán, Beatriz Ramos. Based on the play La Vida Conyugal by Max Aub. 

style ***1/2

substance ***1/2

Distinto Amenecer is probably as good a Hitchcock movie you’ll ever see by a director not named Alfred Hitchcock. It essentially takes the Hitchcockian chase story and sets it in an incredibly atmospheric Mexico City in the early 1940s. The basic idea is reminiscent of The 39 Steps, especially the opening scenes at the theater which bring to mind Richard Hanney being cornered by the police at the Palladium in the latter film. 

But another, even more important, quality of Distinto Amamencer is that it may well be the first film noir [1]; its release in 1943 places it a full year ahead of the traditional noir kickoff year of 1944, during which Murder My Sweet and Double Indemnity in particular closed the deal as full-blown examples of the style. 

It certainly has all the hallmarks of noir: crime story; memorable femme fatale; claustrophobic feeling; threatening urban setting; nightclub; sinister looking bad guys who menace the heroine and pursue the hero; and most of all the great nighttime, off-kilter photography of cinematographic legend Gabriel Figueroa. And make no mistake, visually the film is very dark indeed.

Distinto Amanecer takes place almost totally at night, and is beautifully shot and lit in eminently noirish style. However, the most unforgettable image, alas all too fleeting, takes place in the daytime, at dawn to be exact, nearing the end of the film as a  forlorn Julieta (Andrea Palma) walks into traffic while the tall buildings surround her somwhat menacingly.

Distinto is also probably Andrea Palma’s finest hour along with the below-mentioned Mujer del Puerto [2]. And it’s also good to see a youthful, charismatic Pedro Armendáriz; he and Palma have terrific screen chemistry throughout. My only criticism of the film is that at a leisurely 108 minutes the film feels a little longish.


[1] It’s the first Mexican film noir if we don’t count the proto-noir La Mujer del Puerto from 1934 (wouldn’t that be something if a Mexican noir anticipated Hollywood by a decade!). Of course we can go on and on about the origins and evolution of noir, and indeed writers have gone on and on. Although Double Indemnity is often cited as the first case where all the noir elements combine in a definitive whole, there were lots of prior films which flirted with the noir aesthetic, Stranger on the Third Floor from 1940 being a much referenced example. But all this is perhaps best left for a future posting. Whatever the case, Mujer del Puerto is also a great Andrea Palma vehicle and probably ranks with Distinto as her best leading role before she settled into the more mature and matronly characters she essentially played for the rest of her career.

[2] In Distinto Palma plays a woman who leads a double life: respectable wife by day and B girl at night. This seems to be a favorite [sub]plot theme in Mexican cinema, that of an upstanding middle-class or upper-class woman with a dark secret, usually running a nightclub and/or place of prostitution. At least two other Palma films, Casa de la Zorra and Aventurera, use the same idea. In the latter she reprises the shady role but in Casa plays a more virtuous character.

La Mujer del Puerto 

Elegant heavy

gone and sadly forgotten

    Think the Continental charm and sophistication, if not quite the looks, of Paul Henried. Combine this with a little of the oozing caddishness of George Saunders, and throw in a touch of Lionel Atwill intensity, and you get an idea of our unlikely hero. Ivan Triesault was born in Estonia in 1898, and he and his family moved to the U.S. in 1916 [1]. His biography mentions early training in dance as well as acting, and this might explain his aristocratic carriage and precise movements which served him well in the many Prussian roles which were his bread and butter for the better part of four decades.


     His acting resumé lists a number of supporting roles in the early Forties, alas many occurring in less-than-memorable items like Cry of the Werewolf. However, and mirroring the conspicuous post-Casablanca non-success of the aforementioned Henried, Triesault’s career peaked a bit too soon in mid-decade, after which he was consigned to character roles which were usually little more than extended cameos, the German bodyguard/assassin in Five Fingers being one example. 

    But let us return to 1946 and his supreme cinematic moment (albeit in a supporting role) as the head of the South American Nazi spy ring in Notorious [2]. (Did a bad guy ever look as good in a tuxedo?) Triesault is simply brilliant in the role, projecting his character’s icy charm which barely conceals the menace beneath [3]. His villainous bonafides are established early on as he orders the execution of one of his co-collaborators, an important scientist no less, all on account of a minor disturbance at a dinner party. His powers of intimidation are such that even the super suave, and very rich, Claude Rains and his wicked-witch-of-the-west mother defer to him, cringing in abject terror at his gaze. Speaking of gazes, that last staircase scene -- if a look could kill, Claude Rains would have been taken out on the spot -- heck, Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman, too, half the audience. 

  But this memorable performance did not provide the springboard for other, more substantial roles, quite the opposite. As early as 1950 he was appearing uncredited in bit parts, a typical example being the owner of the photography shop in D.O.A. It may well have been that his rather sinister looks and thick Central European accent simply precluded him from extending his character range. In any case, by the early Fifties he had settled into typecasting as urbane European diplomats, scientists or military officers.

  Along the way there was the occasional, and all too fleeting, juicy part, one of the best being that of the pompous auteur director in The Bad and the Beautiful. Then there was the Soviet general in the über-jingoistic Cold War thriller Jet Pilot (his Nazi screen persona could morph into a Commie if the script called for it). 

  Doubtless he was in more than a few bad movies. But ultimately it could said that he never gave a bad performance, always the thorough and reliable professional (the sunnier side, if you will, of the stiff, severe characters it was his lot to impersonate), and deserving of more recognition in the literature than he currently receives.

  [1] As much as he was a seemingly omnipresent figure in old movies and, later, TV programs, there’s scant little, purely biographical, information available on Triesault, either online or otherwise. Does anyone know more about his biography?
  [2] The lines of authority in the conspiracy group are a little vague. Here’s my take: because of his wealth and corporate connections, Rains is the titular head, but in important operational matters - the elimination of a problematic co-conspirator, for instance - the Triesault character is obviously running the show by way of his unique position as villain-in-chief and principal enforcer. Triesault is so good in the part of Eric Mathis that he almost upstages the better-known, more experienced Rains. Moreover, he literally gets in the last word, delivering the film's memorable closing line: "Alex, will you come in please? I wish to talk to you." But ultimately, in a cruel irony, Triesault was a little too good in the role; he essentially played variations of this screen persona for the rest of his career.
  [3] The character of Mathis in Notorious is a mixture of Old World elegance and 20th century ruthless efficiency; even during his most villainous moments he still manages to have note-perfect manners. In a lightly macabre, eminently Hitchcockian touch, as he’s leaving with the doomed conspirator he takes the time to ask Sebastian (Claude Rains) to be sure to thank his mother for the excellent dinner and to tell her that the dessert was superb.

Return to Glennascaul

Return to Glennascaul : a story that is told in Dublin, [Royle presents a Hilton Edwards and Micheál Mac Liammóir, Dublin Gate Theatre production]. 23 minutes. Screenplay and direction by Hilton Edwards; editor, Joseph Sterling; music, Hans Gunther Stumpf. Shot on location in Dublin, 1951. With Orson Welles, Michael Laurence, Shelah Richards, Helena Hughes. Narrated by Orson Welles.

"Until the day break and the shadows flee away." Song of Solomon 2-17

I first saw Return to Glennascaul in an art movie theatre in Albuquerque about 15 years ago. It was coupled with, as I recall, The Lady from Shanghai. Later I saw it a few more times on VHS and DVD. But first, a confession: the whole thing has such a Welles look and feel that I naturally assumed he was the director, only later to learn that this was not the case, though it’s generally assumed that he had some input into Hilton Edwards’ otherwise splendid direction. In any case, I took to it immediately, especially the noir-like aspects -- voice-over narration, shadowy photography, femmes fatales [of a sort]. 

But in the end, in style and presentation anyway, it’s really an old-fashioned ghost story, notable more for its irresistibly gloomy atmosphere (love the harp music in the background!) than polish of execution. It occurs to me that it would have made a perfect segment for a Twilight Zone episode but to my knowledge it was never shown on American TV, in the 1950s anyway.

I don’t have a lot more to add regarding the substance of the film*. Kimberly Lindbergs  has penned an excellent review at CINEBEATS, and I find myself in harmony with her opinion that, for all its spookiness, Glennascaul is at heart a romance. A meditation on love and death, if you will, and a search for infinite redemption across time and space - and mortality itself - similar in spirit to films like The Ghost and Mrs. Muir and Uninvited (was the 1940s the golden age of ghost movies?). And of course the film’s Ireland pedigree conjures up memories of the Tristan and Isolde legend.

One criticism : the filmmakers seem to go out of their way to stress the story’s Irish bonafides, but all the characters [Welles excepted] speak with proper, upper-class English accents. But this is such a minor complaint for this otherwise immensely enjoyable curiosity, at once eccentric and haunting, in more ways than one.

* Should I keep referring to Glennascaul as a ‘film,’ since it only runs 23 minutes?

Changes

    Some readers might have noticed a change in this blog’s title [1]. I thought Mexico Noir for a title was a bit too narrowly focused, thus I settled on Caffè Noir, which seemed a good choice as it's a nice umbrella for various arts and cultural topics. Moreover, the phrase combines two of my favorite things, coffee and film noir, along with overtones of the whole coffee house gestalt and all its attendant associations. The process also led me to some revealing literature on the mysteries of blog titles and what makes them work, or not.

    BTW I was a little surprised to find that Caffè Noir apparently has not been used as a blog title - touch wood. In any case, as before most of the posts will be on film noir with perhaps an emphasis on Mexican films from the Golden Age. BTW2: unlike Amazon, but like Mr. Halliwell, I have a one through four-star system of rating movies. Thus: * not-so-good; ** ok; *** good/very good; **** awesomely.

    [1] There have also been some fairly significant layout/design changes, though I'm still fussing over the blog's exact look. I switch back & forth between a dark background as befits the blog's title, and a white backdrop, which is easier to read. As a compromise I may ultimately settle on some shading of gray. In either case the http address will remain the same : http://mexnoir.blogspot.com/.

Neo-torero

Not really film noir in the classic sense and much less Mexican noir, Matador is nonetheless a quirky little hitman movie containing a few pivotal scenes which actually take place in Mexico City. In fact it may not be too much of an exaggeration to say that Mexico City is the best part of the film, as the movie makes it seem such a cool place to visit, or to live in, for that matter. 

Anyway, Matador provides another cast-against-type star vehicle for Pierce Brosnan. Portraying an edgy assassin with an unkempt  appearance, Brosnan is indeed the film’s titular matador. His character is mirrored by the real-life matador in the film, but my limited (to say the least) expertise on the subject of bullfighting precludes my saying anything very insightful as to the scenes'  true-to-life accuracy. Suffice to say that to me they they seemed highly effective and authentic.

Aside : I wonder if they ever compiled a list of the best bullfighting films - a Googling of the terms as well as a glance at the Amazon listmanias reveals no such listing for matador/bullfighting films. However, there are indeed numerous compilations of best assassin movies.  Anyway, here’s my uninformed contribution as to the most likely suspects in the cinematic toreador pantheon : The Sun Also Rises, Pandora and the Flying Dutchman, Snows of Kilimanjaro, Blood and Sand.

In any case, Matador’s other strengths include the fast pacing, well-measured editing, and fine supporting cast, especially the redoubtable Philip Baker Hall as Brosnan’s suavely sinister handler. A minor criticism would be the story’s somewhat murky ending. But ultimately for me the acting of Brosnan and the colorful Mexican settings carry the day in this appetizing little slice of neo-noir [1]. 

  [1] Matador has been much reviewed, with most of the notices being favorable. My favorite is Andrew O’Hehir’s take in Salon.

[The Weinstein Company, Miramax Films, Stratus Film Company and DEJ Productions present, in association with Equity Pictures, a Furst Films/Irish Dreamtime production, in association with Arclight Films. Starring Pierce Brosnan, Greg Kinnear, Hope Davis, Philip Baker Hall, Dylan Baker, Adam Scott. Directed and written by Richard Shepard; produced by Pierce Brosnan, Beau St. Clair, Sean Furst and Bryan Furst; music by Rolfe Kent; director of photography, David Tattersall; production designer, Rob Pearson; costume designer, Catherine Thomas; film editor, Carole Kravetz-Aykanian.]

The other Frida

Frida : naturaleza viva. Clasa Film Mundiales, S. A. 1984. Paul Leduc, director; producers, Manuel Barbachano Ponce, Dulce Kuri; writers, Paul Leduc, Jose Joaquin Blanco; photography, Ángel Goded; editor, Rafael Castanedo; production designer, Alejandro Luna. Performers : Ofelia Medina, Juan Jose Gurrola, Salvador Sanchez, Max Kerlow, Claudio Brook.


For all her ubiquitousness in pop, and sometimes high, culture [1], Frida Kahlo has only been portrayed twice in the cinema [2]. Ofelia Medina’s much less well-known but arguably superior essay [3], directed by Paul Leduc, beat its cinematic sibling to the punch by nearly two decades [4]. Thus it can be seen as a sort of proto-Fridamania work, being released, as it were, right on the cusp of the wave that was to culminate in the full-blown Frida cult(ure) of ca. 2000 and the release of the thrice-familiar Salma Hayek version.

With unarguable Mexican bonafides – in contrast to the latter work’s internationalist credentials – Frida : naturaleza viva is at first, and, perhaps second glance, a striking corrective to its splashy rival. In quintessentially art movie fashion, this Frida is essentially a memory film; it does not tell a life’s progression but rather presents stream-of-consciousness vignettes of selected moments and incidents from the artist's life. It’s all done largely through visual imagery, and to a lesser extent, music. The prowling, leisurely paced camera repeatedly views objects related to her life and work – the art, of course, but also mirrors, bottles, political memorabilia, plants, pottery, and letters. There’s not a lot of dialogue or plot exposition, and as a result the stately pacing will try the patience of all but the most determined viewer.

To be sure the Hayek version follows the same fragmentary formula but presents Frida’s life more as a story, and in a more audience friendly, i.e. faster-paced, style, all the while seducing the viewer with its superior technical razzle-dazzle. In any case, both films eschew biographical linearity and instead opt for a floating, quasi-surrealistic montage of memorable images. Indeed, truth be told, there are more similarities between the two films than differences, and it’s not too much of an exaggeration to describe the later Frida as a somewhat unwieldy remake of the prior work [5], a revised and expanded – though not necessarily improved – edition of the Leduc/Medina original, if you will.

Neither film treats with much depth Frida’s, or for that matter, Rivera's political views, though here again the critical consensus is that the Leduc does a superior job of suggesting with some texture the nature of Frida’s political thought [6]. The later Frida ignores or downplays Kahlo's socialist worldview, anti-Americanism, and physical ailments. But in fairness the Medina/Leduc interpretation also leaves out a lot of (sometimes) unpleasant details of Frida’s life : Rivera's womanizing, her divorce from Rivera and subsequent remarriage to him a year later, her drug use and drinking, Frida’s experiences outside Mexico, and her staunch support of Stalinism in her later years. In any case the irony has not been lost on commentators that the current rampant commercialization of Frida and her art is very much at odds with her decidedly Leftist politics.

Ultimately I suspect that most Mexicanists, historical purists, and a fair number of critics will side with the Medina, but - for better or worse - the Taymor-Hayek is the one that will appeal to a broader audience as the more accessible introduction to the artist and her work. In truth, there’s plenty of riches in both films. As for me, I’m fond of both, but tilt toward the Mexican take. Time indeed alters the way we see a movie, and time has been kind to Frida : naturaleza viva.

[1] The all the more frequent references in art history and travel books which describe Rivera as the husband of the famous Mexican painter Frida Kahlo underscore her status as the preeminent Mexican artistic icon. Of course not so long ago the spousal references were reversed.

[2] There are a number of documentaries as well as theatrical productions which have appeared.  Of the documentaries, my favorite is PBS’s The Life and Times of Frida Kahlo (2005). [update 8 Mar '11 : last night I was fortunate to catch on Canal 22 the excellent, regrettably little-known Yo Soy Frida, which would be my current choice as the best Frida documentary - BCS]. Among the innumerable Frida pages on the 'Net is this selective summary of Frida Kahlo films, which, alas, omits the aforementioned Yo Soy Frida.  
  I’m not a theater buff but even the most cursory Google search will reveal a number of theatrical venues; Ms. Medina in particular has revived her Frida persona in a theatrical context in recent years, for example Cada quien su Frida.



[3] The Medina/Leduc version is, happily, creeping up in critical esteem and [North of Border] audience familiarity. For a forceful argument for the earlier film as being the superior work see John Ross, Free Frida Kahlo! and Seth Fein, Frida/Frida, naturaleza viva, American Historical Review 108, no. 4 (October 2003): 1261-63. See also Andrea Kirsh’s comparison of the two films, The three fridas 1 : films and books on Frida. For a pro-Taymor/Hayek counter point of view, see Eli Bartra, John Mraz, "Las dos Fridas: History and transcultural identities," Rethinking History v9 n4 (December 2005), pp. 449-457.　


[4] The actual release date of Frida: naturaleza viva is a little vague; I’ve seen it referenced in various sources as: 1983, 1984, 1986, and 1992.

[5] Fein, p. 1261.

[6] See also: Juliet Lynd, “Art and Politics in Leduc’s Frida ; Naturaleza Viva,” Romance Languages Annual X (1999), pp. 696-702.

Acapulco en blanco y negro

Acapulco en el sueño, por Francisco Tario; con fotografías de Lola Alvarez Bravo. Second, facsimile edition. México, D.F.: Centro Cultural Arte Contemporáneo, 1993. Originally published: México, 1951. “La primera editción de este libro acabó de imprimir el día 9 de febrero de 1951 en los talleres de la Imprenta Nuevo Mundo, Comonfort 29-B, México, D.F., con grabados de Martínez y Cruzado y bajo la dirección de Joaquín Díez Canedo.”

Acaulco noir

Acapulco has long been a favorite for filmmakers of both a cine negro and otherwise bent [1]. Indeed, two classics from the noir canon, Out of the Past and The Lady from Shanghai, were filmed at least in part in Acapulco and its surrounding areas [2]. I’ll never tire of seeing Robert Mitchum waiting in that dreary little cantina for Jane Greer to appear, and when the magic moment arrives and she walks in out of the moonlight sun [3] . . . Wow! Though Past was probably only minimally filmed in Acapulco [4], if at all, we hardly notice or care; the film’s Acapulco scenes beguile with an irresistible atmosphere of mildly sinister exoticism and anticipation which floats, gossamer-like in a hothouse of perfumed sensuousness. Little surprise then that at the end of the film Jane wanted to go back and start over.

At any rate, and in similar b&w fashion, presented in a rival medium and possessed of a noir of a different color, is Lola Alvarez Bravo’s classic Acapulco en el Sueño. My limited facility with Spanish precludes my appreciating the poetry and beauty of Francisco Tario’s accompanying text, much less commenting on it. But in any case with books like these it’s really the photography that’s the thing, and what photography!

With its haunting, shades-of-gray images, Sueño is an eclectic, unlikely paean to Acapulco’s epoca de oro -- the pre-spoiled years of the late 1940s when there was an abundance of charm and a minimum of mass tourism. It’s all there in the varying portraits of the beautiful people (in both senses of the term); slyly candid scenes of gringo tourists; fishermen at work; and most of all, vistas of pristine, natural landscapes, capturing the natural beauty of Acapulco in monochromatic splendor. The silkscreen image on the cover of the original 1951 edition was done by the famed Guatemalan painter Carlos Mérida.

See also : Elizabeth Ferrer, Lola Alvarez Bravo, N. Y., Aperture, 2006; Tario al pique.

[1] The redoubtable IMDB also cites such unlikely classics as Treasure of the Sierra Madre and Captain from Castille as deriving at least in part from Acapulco and its environs.

[2] Past has at least a few scenes which were filmed there, so credited by the aforementioned IMDB.

[3] I always want to say moonlight; it seems more romantic.

[4] Perhaps lacking Past’s poetry and atmosphere, Shanghai nonetheless has an even stronger claim to on-location status, with a significant portion of the middle of the film being comprised of several quintessentially Wellesian scenes set in craggy, windswept cliffs and hills shot at various off-kilter angles.