Devil Between the Legs

The relationship between an older married couple seems to have come to a dead end. They have both taken lovers, and when they occasionally stumple open each other in their large old villa, they curse vilely at each other, much like Elisabeth Taylor and Richard Burton in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf ?. Their young maid has the inhospitable task of keeping things under a certain control in the house.

Taking its time to build tension between the characters, the film masterly maintains its hold over us for the entire running time. As more and more of the characters’ past is revealed, it becomes clear that boundless and at times degrading sexual activities, combined with extreme jealousy, have been central ingredients in their relationship. Not since Roman Polanski's Bitter Moon has this been portrayed in a more entizing manner on film.

Like Alfonso Cuarón did in last year's audience favourite Roma, Mexican veteran Arturo Ripstein uses an absolutely gorgeous black-and-white palette to effectively imbue a sense of sadness and nostalgia for the past.

Arturo Ripstein (b. 1943) is considered one of Mexico's greatest directors, and has competed for the Palme d'Or at the Cannes film festival three times. He started his career in cinema as an assistant to Luis Buñuel at the set of El Angel exterminador back in 1964. Ripstein was born into a film family, and his father Alfredo produced Arturo's first film, based on a script by Gabriel García Marquez.