US Lion's Gate unrated DVD edition

Magnific, brilliant and fascinating artmovie drama from the talented solitaire alt-meister, the Luis Buñuel of Méxican Film, Arturo Ripstein
(born 1943 and very much alive when i write this text in december 2020). Ripstein, who assisted the genius Buñuel when he made some of
his Méxican Masterpieces, and who himself then created a lifelong series of films (and still working today i hope) in the Buñuel spirit.

La Virgen de la Lujuria is a very unique and fascinating film, a stylished love story from the war-time México, from Vera Cruz sometime
1930's or 1940's, and with an amazing opening to the music of 19th century composer Arthus Sullivan's beautiful "Mikado". From a time
during the war-time years when México became an asylum for i.a. Spanish Republicans on the run from fascist dictator Franco's regime.

The lonesome and odd Ignacio Jurado (a brilliant Luis Felipe Tovar) is a waiter in the Café Olivia and he gets obsessed with the beautiful
ex-espanola Lola (Ariadna Gil) a Franco hater and who in her turn gets obsessed with the Luchador (wrestler) Gardenia (Alberto Estrella).
Is the mysterious Lola, as she herself claims, really a Russian-German princess and Circus artist that has been forced to flee Spain after
having been involved with a murder attempt on El Generalissimo Franco, or .... is she an Opium junkie and simple prostitute ?

Anyway, they are having a sexual relation and with Lola as the aggressively dominant part.
The suddenly appearing musical numbers and the visually stylized framing (with, as in his later films, a colorful Ripstein studio setting)
makes this great film an unforgettable viewing experience. Maybe this is my favourite of all the amazing Ripstein films.

anamorphic widescreen 1.85:1, spanish audio 2.0 stereo, with english subtitles, 140 min
Based on the Max Aub 1960 novel "La Verdadera historia de la muerte de Francisco Franco"


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