Writer-director Roberto Flores Prieto gave a great performance (in English) in the Q&A following the screening of his film. He told us a great deal about the background to the film and what motivated him to make it. He was at ¡Viva! last year as well and he obviously feels at home in Manchester (I’m tempted to make a joke about rain, but more of that later).
Roberto told us that he liked the title simply as a phrase. If it has a link to the film’s narrative it is because it refers to a certain type of audio signal picked up on the radios and TVs repaired by Luis, a man in late middle age who lives on his own. Early in the film we meet him in a bar where he appears to succumb to the siren call of a bar girl and the couple then retire to a run-down hotel. A little later we meet Carmen (Mabel Pizarro), a woman in her early fifties who cleans the rooms in the hotel and occasionally sits at the reception desk. She lives on her own in the hotel and begins a tentative pursuit of Luis (who she has presumably known for some time since he lives locally and advertises his repair business).
Without the background about the city of Barranquilla before the screening I didn’t really get all the nuances of the film’s narrative. The set-up is very simple. There are just a handful of main locations, Luis’s room, the hotel, the bar and the streets between the three. Carmen visits a Chinese takeaway and a hairdresser and Luis delivers/picks up some items for repair. Not a great deal happens ‘plot-wise’ and the film is 110 minutes long. However, in its exploration of film language in terms of cinematography, costume, set design and use of sound and music, the film is rich in meanings. (The look of the film is inspired by the American painter Edward Hopper.) Prieto wants to spend time with his two central characters. He wants us to understand what they feel and to think about their responses. These two people are attracted to each other for a variety of reasons but they are sensitive and wary about allowing someone else into their lives. They might be easily hurt. I won’t spoil the story so I’ll simply point out that this isn’t a Hollywood narrative.
Back to the rain: Barranquilla is on the Caribbean coast of Colombia and it rains a lot in season. Prieto told us that the city (the third largest in the country), is ‘looked down on’ from Bogota but the director lives there and he was determined to use it as a not just a location but almost as a character. The rain is so heavy that in the old parts of the city, the roads become fast-running streams. These are dangerous, so in the symbolism of the melodrama, rain doesn’t only signify ‘sexual release’, but also the danger of sexual congress/relationship. I realised a little after the screening that in several different ways, Ruido Rosa resembles Wong Kar-Wai’s classic In the Mood For Love. Certainly the dark streets, the rain and the music/costumes are important in both films. So too is the question of exile/migration. In this case it is Carmen who has long dreamed of travelling to New York. Will she decide to stay with Luis or to finally join the other 5 million Colombians living abroad? How will Luis deal with Carmen’s desire to leave? These are the important questions that give an edge to the relationship between the two.
Ruido Rosa is a classic ‘meller’, but it is also very funny at times – in certain carefully presented deadpan scenes e.g. when Carmen and a colleague at the hotel solemnly chomp on Chinese take-away meals and in a neighbourhood cinema when we watch Luis and Carmen but listen to hilarious versions of dialogue from typical Hollywood genre films (all provided by the director). Carmen goes to the cinema to practise English, repeating the lines she hears. Music is integral to the film and I enjoyed it very much. At one point we join Luis and Carmen in a local bar with live music from a trio (?). Like much of the film, this sequence reminded me of old Havana and of Cuban cinema. Afterwards I noted that Roberto Flores Prieto had studied at the International Film School in Cuba. This little bar scene also reminded me of the wonderful sequence in the Claire Denis film 35 rhums which includes the characters dancing to a version of ‘Siboney’.
In the end the sense of a love story told almost in defiance of Hollywood convention is what defines Ruido Rosa. The shooting was completed in just three and a half weeks. The two principals are not ‘stars’ but they have experience, Roosevel Gonzalez as a dancer and Mabel Pizarro as a drama teacher. Director, writers and crew seem to be on the same wavelength – making something that requires patience to watch but which is ultimately rewarding. Prieto told us that in Colombia cinephiles no longer go to the multiplexes but prefer to watch films at home on DVD and download. But the success of Ruido Rosa at festivals does seem to have helped it get more screenings at home (see the film’s Facebook page) and that must be good. I look forward to seeing a Roberto Flores Prieto film in Manchester again.
The trailer:
The Case for Global Film 