08 · 31 · 23

Ripstein y las mujeres del puerto

Rafael Aviña

In 1933, Arcady Boytler, a filmmaker of Russian origin, co-directed with Raphael J. Sevilla a variant of the topic of the young woman initiated into the sex trade: The Woman of the Port, an instant classic that knew how to turn around the theme of the seduced, abandoned and prostituted woman, starring an enigmatic and melancholic Andrea Palma and Domingo Soler, based on a story by Guy de Maupassant. Around 1949, Emilio Gómez Muriel would make a second version with María Antonieta Pons and Víctor Junco, a variant where the languid port sinner who “sells pleasure to the men of the sea” was transformed into a cheerful rumba dancer who also prostitutes herself and, knowing she is in love with her brother, commits suicide.

Later, the decade of the nineties opened with a moralistic third version entitled: La diosa del puerto (1990) by Luis Quintanilla, starring Lina Santos and Fernando Almada. A rural schoolteacher is raped and her mother murders the perpetrator, but the young woman blames herself and goes to prison. Her son is born, gets lost and she spends ten years in jail. When she gets out, and under the nickname of La Diosa [The Goddess], she sets up a brothel where her son arrives without anyone knowing their relationship; however, before committing incest, they recognize each other through a medallion and la Diosa, shocked, takes her own life.

Only a year later it will be decisive the excessive and sordid vision of the couple formed by the filmmaker Arturo Ripstein and his screenwriter Paz Alicia Garciadiego, who achieve a gruesome but very attractive portrait of prostitution in their version of Woman of the Port (1991). A creative couple capable of rethinking and exploiting to the maximum the possibilities of melodrama, a genre par excellence of Mexican cinema, with a harsh and flagellant proposal both of the family nucleus (i.e. incest, hatred, death and redemption that never comes), and the elements surrounding the sex trade. 

It is a cursed, superbly executed work that ended up censored and canned for more than thirty years and is finally being released these days. A monstrous and fascinating family and prostitute portrait, where the filmmaker's words apply to perfection at the time: “The approach to the dream ... be the nightmare ... be aware that we live in the anteroom of hell ...”. Indeed, it is an unsettling story not exempt of sordidness and misogyny and perhaps one of the best of their contemporary filmography, due to its narrative treatment, simple and effective despite its dramatic twists and turns. And it is only fair that Mexican audiences see it and decide.

 In a small Mexican port, Marro (Damián Alcázar), a sick and filthy sailor, arrives at the  brothel of Eneas (Ernesto Yánez). After receiving oral sex, Marro faints and is helped by Perlita (Evangelina Sosa), a young woman prostituted by her mother, Tomasa (Patricia Reyes Spíndola), the brothel’s laundress. Later, they become lovers and he discovers that Perlita is his sister, since he ran away as a child after beating his drunken father to death. Unlike previous versions, where the protagonists choose suicide when faced with the possibility of committing incest, Ripstein and Paz Alicia decide to break the taboo on the subject and turn the matter into a disturbing story of love on the edge, told from three opposing perspectives: those of its three main characters.

In the style of Rashomon (1951, dir. Akira Kurosawa), each point of view adds new information to a complex story that subverts (and perverts with intelligence and daring) the melodrama, the passionate, erotic and incestuous story and the familiar vision of society. However, beyond this fragmented plot, which is complemented by the testimonies of Perlita, Marro, Tomasa and other characters such as the old pianist and singer Carmelo (Alejandro Parodi), the most attractive aspect of this extremist film is its audacity to play with the elements of sexuality and morality in a radical that is still relevant after three decades.

Translated by Adrik Díaz