Tautly-executed, and at times conveying a trepid sense of hopelessness, Ripstein’s work tackles a reformed ex-criminal’s futile attempt in escaping a corrupt system of intimidation and control. 

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The sheer futility of an individual trying to escape a corrupt system of intimidation and control is expressed with utmost clarity in Arturo Ripstein’s Life Sentence. 

It is a tautly-executed work with fascinating use of flashbacks that not only give us ‘back stories’ of its lead character, Javier, but smartly and economically link the past with the present.  

Life Sentence is an indictment of a society that asks people with good intentions to tolerate being bad.  In this case, Javier, or El Tarzan, as he is known during his younger days as a petty thief and pimp, is trapped in a cycle of limited progress. 

Now older, and having a family and stable job at a bank, he hopes to leave his torrid past behind, but the past unwittingly catches up with him. 

“Don’t do this to me, let me continue my new path.”

I’m only beginning to discover Ripstein, who appears to be a very interesting director.  Life Sentence is solid as a character study of a man who realises that redemption is a myth, especially in a country where vice and coercion are the norms. 

In this regard, the title takes on another meaning: it may refer to the administering of justice (which in itself is ironic in a place bereft of it), but it is not a person, for instance, a judge, who would prescribe punishments; instead, it is the ‘culture’ of hopelessness that has caused power to be devolved for further exploitation. 

In spite of its rather muscular old-school filmmaking style, Life Sentence draws empathy for a person who may forever be consigned to a life of trepidation and manipulation, a cautionary tale of the implications of dipping one’s toes in crime, no matter how petty.

Grade: A-

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