BLEAK STREET – Squeaky Wheel Film & Media Art Center

Loading Events

« All Events

BLEAK STREET

February 17, 2016 @ 7:00 pm9:00 pm EST

$7

YouTube video

Wednesday, February 17th, 2016
7pm
@ Squeaky Wheel Film & Media Art Center

Little Red Booking is proud to resume their tenure curating films with Squeaky Wheel with the first selection in the Winter/Spring installment of the Kaleidotropes film series, starting with the new film from Mexican maestro Arturo Ripstein, one of the world’s most resilient auteurs. Ripstein, whose career stretches 50 years of filmmaking, is the most vital, tenacious and original director of the generation that made its debut in the mid-Sixties, the heir of the golden age of Mexican studio films and the forerunner of the new generation of contemporary authors. His films are a strange blend of beauty and brutality, compassion and violence, irony and sadness, deriving from popular tragedy and the atmospheres of melodrama, which he cleverly re-elaborates. These are the elements that shape his newest film, a true-crime melodrama entitled Bleak Street.

Bleak Street (Arturo Ripstein)
99 min, digital, Mexico/Spain, 2015

“Appropriating its strange, sad story from a real-life case of accidental homicide, the latest from Mexican maestro Arturo Ripstein (Deep Crimson) might best be characterized as ‘expressionistic true crime.’ Bleak Street plunges us deep into the darkest shadows of Mexico City, where the everyday struggles of three families tragically converge.The 2009 deaths of fraternal wrestlers La Parkita and Espectrito Jr. made headlines all over Mexico. These miniluchadores — little people who function as mascots for their hulking counterparts — were drugged by two women in a Cuauhtémoc hotel. The women only meant to knock out the brothers and take their money, but the doses were misjudged, and the robbery turned into murder.As reimagined by scenarist Paz Alicia Garciadiego, Ripstein’s wife and long-time collaborator, this sensationalistic news item becomes a platform for a series of engrossing character studies through which we get to know the brothers and their two killers. Sketching the events just before and after that fateful night in the hotel, the film conducts a wry examination of Mexico City’s marginalized, whether they be exploited entertainers with threadbare costumes or aging sex workers trying to earn enough to support their dependents.Echoing his early mentor Luis Buñuel, Ripstein bestows compassion upon all his characters equally while eschewing sentimentality. But this in no way curbs his penchant for black comedy, which unfurls in details such as the wrestlers’ refusal to remove their masks under any circumstances. With its spellbinding long-take, black-and-white imagery, and naturalistic performances, Bleak Street guides us through a gloomy labyrinth of desperation and desire — and winds up being one of the finest works of Ripstein’s career.” -TIFF.net

Kaleidotropes is a series of strange and unearthly delights that is brought to you by Jake Mikler of Little Red Booking and Squeaky Wheel Film & Media Arts Center.

Details

Date:
February 17, 2016
Time:
7:00 pm– 9:00 pm EST
Cost:
$7
Event Category:

Organizer

Squeaky Wheel
Phone
7168847172
View Organizer Website

Venue

Squeaky Wheel
2495 Main Street, Suite 310
Buffalo, NY 14214 United States
+ Google Map
Phone
7168847172
View Venue Website