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Review

The Night Buffalo

Director

Jorge Hernandez Aldana

Year

2007

Rating

Reviewed by

Gon C Curiel a.k.a. Groucho

Review date

Thursday, September 06, 2007

I didn’t know much about this movie before I saw it, save that it was based on a novel by Guillermo Arriaga and adapted by himself to the big screen. That sounded good, but really dangerous. Arriaga is the writer of the three-storied film trilogy directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu, comprised by Amores Perros (2000), 21 Grams (2003) and Babel (2006). He got into a big argument with the director after Babel was made because he wanted as much credit for the films’ creation as González Iñárritu got, because he hates to be called a screenwriter, and believes that the writer is as responsible for the film’s success as the director.

I myself am an amateur writer and I understand the feeling, but I don’t see a need to be so pretentious, I think the weight of the pieces speak for themselves and anyone who appreciates cinema knows that the man who penned them is powerful. If a Mexican film without González Iñárritu was written by Arriaga, I knew it could be out of control. Who’s to stop him? Thankfully it was based on a story he’d written before, and obviously he’s enormously talented, but who’s to tell him he’s wrong here or there, who’s to put him in his place, who’s to contradict him? It’s all him, and it’s all wrong. Too bad.

Director Jorge Hernández Aldana co-scripted the adaptation and frankly he seems to be Arriaga’s yes-man because I don’t feel like he added any sense to the procedures. I wish I had read the novel, sometimes a novel explains much of the substance, but as a cinematographic experience I couldn’t grab the meaning of things. I won’t say I had an unpleasant time because I didn’t, though. I enjoyed seeing these people and wondering what was going on. Only it never paid off and was a let-down in the end.

The premise is frankly intriguing. Friends Manuel (Diego Luna) and Gregorio (Gabriel González) meet again after the latter is released from an asylum where he was treated for schizophrenia. Manuel’s loyalty is rather dubious: he’s banging both Gregorio’s sister (Irene Azuela) and girlfriend Tania (Liz Gallardo). Gregorio snaps and kills himself, but not before leaving Manuel a good-bye gift: a box full of letters, pictures and souvenirs that slowly but certainly drive him crazy.

The film is told largely through flashbacks, and it is frankly absorbing. It’s cool to see how Manuel fell for Tania, how he slowly betrayed Gregorio, and how Gregorio surrendered to madness. The three of them are interesting characters, obviously complex and tortured. But the story set in the present is not half as interesting. Manuel is pathetic and doesn’t generate any empathy. He’s a womanizer if there ever was one, apparently gets everything he wants, is nothing like the rest of us, and we’re supposed to feel something for him? Camila Sodi, that young Mexican actress who’s skyrocketing to fame, appears in a short scene, unnecessarily naked, only to emphasize that point. Her participation is completely senseless and totally out of place. After a while, we get tired of our “hero” consoling sobbing women and banging them like there’s nothing else to do in life. Not that I minded seeing so much female flesh (I found Liz Gallardo irresistible) but even I thought it was too much. And nothing is ever too much in film… unless the story is so thin that it doesn’t justify the action.

The performances aren’t bad, only most of the actors have nothing to do with their characters. Emilio Echevarría is notable as a police interrogator and Gabriel González is haunting as the crazed Gregorio. Héctor Ortega’s photography has a personality and Alex Márquez’s editing delivers. Omar Rodríguez-López’s score is excruciatingly performed by the Mars Volta, getting in the way at all times. All in all it’s a painful experience.

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Other reviews of The Night Buffalo (2007): Morris