 |
| Regina Orozco and Daniel Giménez Cacho in Deep Crimson |
Cast: Regina Orozco, Daniel Giménez Cacho, Sherlyn, Giovani Florido, Fernando Soler Palavicini, Patricia Reyes Spindola, Alexandra Vicencio, Julieta Egurrola, Marisa Paredes, Rosa Furman, Verónica Merchant, Juan de la Loza. Screenplay: Paz Alicia Garciadiego. Cinematography: Guillermo Granillo. Production design: Mónica Chirinos, Macarena Folache, Antonio Muño-Hierro, Nava, Marisa Pecanins. Film editing: Rafael Castanedo. Music: David Mansfield.
Arturo Ripstein's Deep Crimson carries a dedication in its credits to "Leonard, Martha, and Raymond," the director and protagonists of The Honeymoon Killers (Leonard Kastle, 1970). Ripstein has moved the events of Kastle's film to Mexico, and the actual "lonely hearts killers" Martha Beck and Raymond Fernandez have become Coral Fabre (Regina Orozco) and Nicolás Estrella (Daniel Giménez Cacho), but the sequence of events follows pretty much the same brutal line as Kastle's film. Ripstein's is the more sophisticated version of the story, enhanced by the Sonoran Desert setting of much of the film and by the intense color of Guillermo Granillo's cinematography. The protagonists of Deep Crimson are perhaps even more psychotic than those of Kastle's, and the justice served up to them is ironically almost as corrupt as they are. In the end, it's a question of whether you prefer the low-budget earnestness of Kastle's treatment or the sardonic tone of Ripstein's.
