Deep Crimson (1998) aka Profundo Carmesi stars Daniel Gimenez Cocho and Regina Orozco in Mexican director Arturo Ripstein’s reworking of The Honeymoon Killers (1970). Both films were inspired by the actual murder spree committed by the “Lonely Hearts Killers” in the late 1940s. Ripstein and his wife, writer Paz Alicia Garciadiego have managed to successfully transplant those horrible events to the lonely, dust-filled region of northern Mexico for their sad tale of mad love. It’s a good movie, arguably Ripstein’s masterpiece, moving at times and painful to watch at others as its brutal honesty rings louder than its gallows humor.
Buy Deep Crimson (Criterion Collection)Nicolas Estrella (Gimenez Cocho) is a conman and fraud who pretends to be a true Spanish gentleman so he can swindle lonely widows out of their fortunes. Coral Fabre (Orozco) is an overweight former mortuary assistant turned nurse with two kids, bad breath, low self esteem and obsession with Charles Boyer. She responds to Nico’s lonely hearts ad and immediately falls head over heels because she sees him as a Spanish Boyer. He’s disappointed and leaves quickly, only to return days later for a one-night stand that ends with him going through her purse and slipping out as she feigns sleep. Coral will not let him go so easily and tracks him to his home with her kids in tow only to be rejected again.
Extreme obsession being what it is, Coral abandons her children at an orphanage and returns to Nico’s house. Once inside and alone, Coral discovers Nico’s two horrible secrets: he prays on lonely women for their wealth, and he is bald and wears a toupee. Unphased by his flaws, Coral pledges blind devotion to aid the faux gent and cooks up a plan to pose as his sister to assist him in his dirty business. Eventually, out of jealousy and pure insanity, she ends up outright killing for Nico to expedite the scam before they meet their own violent fate at the hands of local law enforcement.
Deep Crimson is crude and brutally honest while still being beautifully shot and framed with a strong script by Garciadiego. Ripstein, “the godfather of Mexican independent cinema,” commands great use of colors, shadows, and silhouettes in a way that pays homage to Hollywood’s golden era. As the story becomes darker and the mood more heavy, the locations become more barren, dirty, and weathered. As we follow the antiheroes’ bloody spiral down the tunnel of mad love, Ripstein manages to keep them based in reality. He explores their flaws and insecurities in an attempt to humanize them while never glamorizing their horrific acts. Coral thinks she’s hideous because she’s fat and has chronic bad breath. Nicolas believes he’s a deformed monster because he’s balding.
Aside from their murder spree which makes them real monsters, the truth is she is a horrible mother even before she meets NIco and he’s a weak, insecure predator. Perfect for each other while bad for the world as they commit atrocious acts to feel better about themselves. If anyone ever needed therapy or better friends and family from the start, it’s these two. The director’s cut adds back in 23 minutes that were scraped to keep the runtime low as well as the censors and producers off Ripstein’s back. Though those restored scenes may show a bit more of a human side to the gruesome twosome, it still does nothing to redeem them.
The Criterion Collection’s release of Deep Crimson is in Spanish with English subtitles and comes with both a 4K UHD and Blu-ray version of the digitally restored directors cut. There’s also a fold-out print of the Diego Rivera-inspired poster art with an essay by Haden Guest on the back side. The Special Features include a 12-minute introduction by director Ari Aster (Eddington), where he gives a good tour of Ripstein’s films, his directing style, and how Deep Crimson just might be his masterpiece. It’s a very insightful introduction especially for fans that have only ever seen the edited theatrical version.
Also included are two new 22-minute-long interviews, one with Ripstein titled Mad Love and the other with Garciadiego on Writing for the Screen. Both interviews delve deeper into the thought processes of writer and director as they explain the film origins, the dedication to restoring it to its original version, and the lengths to which they went to preserve the camera negatives before they were destroyed or lost. They also discuss how the actual Lonely Hearts case inspired Deep Crimson and the issues they had adaptimg the story to Mexico in the 1940s in regard to the view towards widows and Mexican laws against the death penalty. In Mexico, especially at the time of the movie’s setting, there were only certain parts of Mexico where widows would be less scrutinized and under the all watching eye of the community. Thus rural Northern Mexico, closer to the Texas border. We also learn from Ripstein about his admiration for Luis Bunuel who he met at an early age through his producer father and was able to study under as a sort of apprentice.
Deep Crimson is a beautifully shot, brutal but not gory, good movie. A bit hard to recommend but good nonetheless. And I understand that people are flawed, damaged, and insecure but in the end, I still had zero sympathy for these villains as they met their just demise.
