Raul Ruiz’s The Wandering Soap Opera

You have to give the Chilean auteur Raul Ruiz credit for being so admirably prolific in death. Night Across the Street released shortly after his demise, whereas Ruiz’s wife and frequent collaborator Valeria Sarmiento used his pre-production work to helm The Lines of Wellington, taking sole directorial credit. His “latest” film is more of a rediscovery. Unlike suspiciously posthumous novels released years after the supposed author’s death, Ruiz helmed these satirical interconnected vignettes at the peak of his powers in 1990, so Sarmiento only had to edit them together per his intentions. The hardest part was finding the lost film of the experimental workshop sessions. Your feelings on experimental workshops will be a strong indicator of how much or how little you will enjoy Ruiz’s The Wandering Soap Opera when it opens today in New York.

Soap Opera was filmed in 1990, when Ruiz returned to Chile during the early days of the democratic reforms. Not surprisingly, there are political references littered throughout the film, but many will be stubbornly murky for outsiders to interpret. On the other hand, most of the comedy sending up the conventions and clichés of telenovelas is easy to get. Essentially, the figures we see on screen are mostly characters on telenovelas, but some are telenovela characters who are watching other telenovelas characters. In one case, the telenovela is even interrupted by an actress asking the characters how she could get cast to be on their show.

This all sort of gives the film a Russian doll structure, but it lacks the Borgesian bravura of Guy Maddin’s The Forbidden Room or even Ruiz’s masterful Mysteries of Lisbon. It also logically follows that some mini-arcs will be stronger than others. By far the funniest sequence chronicles an endless cycle of rival leftist rebels killing each other and issuing stilted statements, before getting gunned down in turn. However, there are several sequences involving overwrought middle-aged characters (often former political exiles) sitting around parlors exchanging purple dialogue that start to blend together.

Not surprisingly, there is an off-the-cuff raggedness to Wandering that is part of its charm. It was a time of change. Ruiz and his cast and crew were obviously delighted to have the opportunity to work together and address issues of exile, resistance, and religion openly. It is just somewhat surprising they did not have more to say.

Even though it only runs a modest 78 minutes, a little of Wandering goes a long way. After 40 minutes, most viewers will get everything there is to get. There are amusing moments sprinkled throughout, but it is definitely a decidedly uneven viewing experience. Those with mainstream tastes and preferences should be strongly cautioned: The Wandering Soap Opera is only for patrons of the avant-garde who will forgive its excesses for the sake of its politics. Recommended for the one-percent of the population that loves to use the term “one-percent” derisively, The Wandering Soap Opera opens today (5/17) in New York, at Anthology Film Archives.

Ana Maria in Novela Land: A Telenovela Pulls a Body Switch

The only thing Ana Maria Soto is industrious about is tweeting telenovelas. She has a fair number of followers, but none them are her quickly exasperated work colleagues. Those gigs never last long anyway. Frankly, even her long suffering family hardly notices the difference when she pulls a 1980s style body-switcheroo with the heroine of the telenovela she currently tweets. Fish will be out of water and lessons will be learned in Georgina Garcia Riedel’s Ana Maria in Novela Land (trailer here), which opens this Friday in Los Angeles.

Soto just got pink-slipped from another job and flaked out on her older sister’s bridal dress fitting. Her family is pretty bummed out with her, but everything seems to make sense when tonight’s episode of Passion Without Limits starts. However, a freak electricity surge exchanges her consciousness with the lead character, Ariana Tomosa, who is engaged to a wealthy older man, while carrying on an affair with his brooding son.

Of course, Soto knows all this, so she adapts to life in the telenovela relatively easily. On the other hand, Tomosa is out to sea in the real world, but Tony, the young neighborhood internist who always carried a torch for Soto, will help the presumed amnesiac start to act like a real person. In fact, she soon becomes easier to live with than the real Ana Maria, despite her dramatic nature. Meanwhile, Soto enjoys vamping it up in the telenovela, but she knows full well its limited run will soon conclude—and then what?

Initially, Novela Land is kind of amusing and it features fan favorite Luis Guzmán playing Schmidt, Tomosa’s scheming attorney nemesis. Sadly, it is also the final film of Elizabeth Peña (Lone Star, La Bamba, Down and Out in Beverly Hills), who has some nice moments giving uncooperative bridal staff what-for. Still, there is not much heft to the film, even before starts recycling its body switch jokes.

Everyone hams it up, because obviously. Still, Edy Ganem effectively differentiates Soto from Tomosa. There are a few inventive gags, such as when Soto happens to wander into a Korean soap opera. Pepe Serna deadpans nicely as Father Miguel, but the forthcoming Man from Reno is a much more compelling (and infinitely darker) showcase for his under-appreciated chops.

Unfortunately, Soto’s K-drama interlude is as surreal as the film gets. Given the premise (essentially an updated riff on the John Candy movie Delirious), Riedel and co-screen-writer Jose Nestor Marquez could have played more mischievous games with on-screen reality, but they mostly just keep it safe and sentimental. Too sitcom-my and not nearly out there enough for mainstream genre audiences, Ana Maria in Novela Land is mostly just for fans like Soto when it opens this Friday (2/27) at the Burbank and Orange AMC theaters in California.