July 25, 2005
Nine Queens
Last night I watched the Argentine film Nueve Reinas (Nine Queens). In the style of The Spanish Prisoner and Wild Things, it is a movie where everyone is conning everyone else, and you're never sure, at any given moment, who is conning and who is being conned (with layers of conning and clever plot twists piled on top of each other).
I enjoyed Nine Queens so much that I rented The Spanish Prisoner--one of my favorite movies--afterwards and, watching them back to back, a fundamental difference became clear:
In Nine Queens, everyone you meet, you feel and assume that they're trying to con everyone else in the film. And if you realize, at any given point, that a character is not trying to con someone (but is himself being conned), then you feel pleasantly surprised. But in The Spanish Prisoner, your reaction is the exact converse: you think, at every point in the movie, that each of the characters is a good guy -- and when you realize, at any particular point, that a particular character is actually a bad guy, you are then disappointed.
This difference, then, is not just the difference between two con man movies, but a summary of the difference between the American and Argentine cultures. In Argentina, it seems, everyone is always trying to screw everyone else -- and when you find someone who isn't, then you are pleasantly surprised. But in America, it seems, no one is trying to screw anyone -- and when you find someone who is, you are disappointed.
The percentages of people conning others may end up being the same with both countries--I don't know the numbers--but these difference in expectations give very different feelings to interacting with people and having relationships of all sorts in both countries.
As a side-note, is there a name of this genre of movies? And, other than the three I listed above, does anyone have any other movies of this sort to recommend? If you also enjoy these sorts of who-is-conning-whom? movies, then you'll love Nueve Reinas.
Posted by Morgan at 01:10 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (2)
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Comments
I don't know about Nine Queens, but the other movies you mention would, I think, generally be considered 'noir' or even 'neo-noir'. I seem to remember 'Wild Things' being described as something called 'swamp noir', as in people conning and menacing each other in a bayou (other famous examples would be 'Cape Fear' and 'Night of the Hunter', or the silly ending of 'Adaptation') But I generally associate any of those films where you don't know which way is up because everyone is potentially a con with the broad category of Film Noir.
Posted by: ooghe at July 25, 2005 04:39 PM
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