THE WRESTLER

Les dejo aqui la reseña de Groucho sobre "El luchador" (es el mismo director de Pi, Darren Aronofsky). La reseña de Groucho dice varias cosas de las que yo pensé, es muy atinada (para mi gusto). Y esto me ahorra tener que escribir algo yo, cosa que agradezco ya que mis ganas de escribir algo medianamente digno son inversamente proporcionales a mi cruda de hoy viernes.

Por cierto, si ven la película, hay una escena en el super, donde una viejita le pide que le ponga más pasta, luego menos, luego más y así. Pues me fije en los créditos y resulta que la señora es Aronofsky también, igual y es su abuelita. Se me hizo un detallazo. Pongan atención a esa parte.

No se la pierda, parece que el personaje fue creado para Rourke. La actuación es buenísima.

Y aqui en DB esperamos ansiosos la reseña de Blue Velvet. Así nos animaremos a verla de nuevo con otros ojos.

Que tengan un muy buen fin de semana. Vayan a ver la expo de David Lachapelle, creo que está en San Ildefonso. Dicen que vale la pena. Y de ahí a comer a la Fonda de Santo Domingo. ¿como ven el plan?

Ahora si, con ustedes...por Groucho..."The Wrestler":


I find it impossible not to love such a fortunate combination of elements in a film: script, cast and execution, all flawless, and together, even better. Narrowing it down, Robert D. Siegel’s script couldn’t have found a better actor to play its leading character than Mickey Rourke, a down-on-his-luck performer who once topped credits and was a box-office magnet, and now, after a bumpy road during which he left Hollywood and took up boxing, has come back with a face as bumpy, tired and drained, but willing to give his all. Few times in life does an actor resemble a character so well; it just has to be noticed.

Unfortunately, the character, Randy “The Ram” Robinson, a wrestler who has quite lost his track, never quite gets the opportunity that Rourke has got, but the magic is Rourke seems to have lost all opportunities even if he becomes a grade-A actor now, because his wounds are apparent both in a superficial and an internal level. Heck, it’s probably not the case, but that’s how it seems, and it works in pro of the movie, as it gives the Ram even more depth, not that it really needs it, so the character ends up being monumental.

Loved by fans, even after so many years, the Ram is penniless and decadent. He lives in a trailer, works intermittently in a supermarket, and has no friends except the kids in the trailer park and an exotic dancer that frequently gives him lap dances for the usual fee, during which they have what at first seems to be chit-chat but later is revealed to be a series of cathartic confessions from him.

The study of this man never even attempts to imply that wrestlers or lap dancers are decadent and that’s one of its virtues: for example, she, Cassidy, played by the remarkable Marisa Tomei, is the best at her work and supports a child (as so many lap dancers do, I have come to find out), and even shies away from getting involved with a customer. As for him, the reasons why he’s lost his path so drastically have very little to do with wrestling.

Wrestling, in fact, is shown as quite a difficult and demanding profession, unlike the growing notion that it’s not hard at all because it’s all an act. We all know it’s an act, but fans go with the flow; however, not all “acts” are the same: it’s easier to act than to risk your life doing it, constantly injuring yourself and others for the sake of entertainment, one with such a demanding audience that claims more blood every time.

The wrestling scenes are masterful: bloody, gory, and constantly tragic. They’re also contrasting, as the fellow wrestlers, many of whom are real-life wrestlers in cameo roles, are shown as compassionate individuals who care as much about their colleagues as they do about themselves. Speaking so calmly about new ways to hurt each other, and hugging each other after they’ve done it, no doubt requires more effort than the fights show.

The Ram is so into his career and his pitiful existence that he doesn’t really see anything wrong with it, or doesn’t want to see it, until something happens which threatens his existence in a definitive way and makes him revise his life and his profession like he never did before. This leads him to value Cassidy (real name Pam) for the first time as a human being, realizing at last that she’s the only person in his life, but not the only one he cares for; she makes him see soon enough that he must call his estranged daughter, a daughter he had already talked to her about, most likely during a lap dance…

I had already found the film rather tearful, but Randy’s attempts to get near his daughter, Stephanie (Evan Rachel Wood), did it for me. After that, it was just one strike after the other, some crude, some bright, all real, until the inevitable denouement, a perfect one, and perhaps the only one that would make sense.

The fact that this really is the first big role of Mickey Rourke after his absence and some years in smaller and sometimes insignificant roles helps give the Ram so much realism. After two seconds, I forgot this man was Rourke and was sure he was Robinson, that ol’ wrestler good-for-noth’n who somehow kept smiling and joking and trying to have fun, never hurting a soul, at least not willingly. Few words are really spoken, and of those, few are profound, but his story is constantly bursting out of the screen: he’s in pain, has always been, and will always be. And much of that is self-inflicted. And I’m not talking about wrestling.