The Realm of Fortune (El Imperio de la Fortuna)

Based on a Juan Rulfo story, Arturo Ripstein's The Realm of Fortune follows a poor peasant named Dionisio (the fantastic Ernesto Gomez Cruz) who learns a disheartening lesson on the vagaries of wealth, luck, and happiness after rescuing a wounded golden rooster that proves to be his ticket into the brutal world of high stakes cockfighting. After winning several matches, the initially naïve Dionisio attracts the attentions of a corrupt and wealthy man (Alejandro Parodi) and a lucky and beautiful singer (Blanca Guerra), who introduce him to the realities of modern Mexico, where the fix is always on, a lesson he learns so well that he eventually overtakes his teachers. A lovely and heartbreaking fable that spans both the arid fields where honest agrarian lifestyles are mired in poverty, and the sleazy atmosphere of the grift-filled county fairs, where great wealth awaits the man without morals, Ripstein and Cruz deftly capture Dionisio's hollow rise to glory (though his inevitable descent is a bit overlong). Unfortunately, there's a bit of lowbrow humor that comes from the film's uninspired subtitle translations (“A man only has one cock,” etc.), which would have benefited from the loving care employed on the richly restored print used for this handsome DVD transfer. Recommended. (D. Fienberg)