A poor man experiences wealth for the first time as Ripstein’s hard-hitting if straightforward drama depicts the soul-crushing consequences of greed and self-aggrandization.
Review #2,600
Dir. Arturo Ripstein
1986 | Mexico | Drama | 132 min | 1.85:1 | Spanish
Not rated – likely to be NC16 for some nudity
Cast: Ernesto Gomez Cruz, Blanca Guerra, Alejandro Parodi
Plot: Desperate to escape poverty, villager Dionosio Pinzón restores an injured rooster to health and starts pitting it in cockfights. When the bird proves to be a fierce competitor, the money begins rolling in and Dionosio abandons his humble roots to cultivate the trappings of wealth.
Awards: –
Source: Instituto Mexicano de Cinematografía
Accessibility Index
Subject Matter: Moderate – Poverty & Wealth; Greed & Pride
Narrative Style: Straightforward
Pace: Slightly Slow
Audience Type: Slightly Arthouse
Viewed: MUBI
Spoilers: No
With The Realm of Fortune, Arturo Ripstein gives us a rags-to-riches-to-rags story as Dionisio, a poor man, finds out that poverty is an inevitable cycle even when one has experienced temporary wealth.
Dionisio’s luck changes when he saves a rooster from a cockfight and nourishes it back to health in order to use it for cockfights again. As his prized rooster goes on a winning run, he finds his pockets quickly loaded with moolah and becomes proud of his change in fortunes.
Ripstein’s work is not just a cautionary piece on the perils of imprudence but also of self-aggrandization—greed and pride are indeed two of Man’s deadliest sins.
As Dionisio endures a roller-coaster ride of emotions, the viewer follows his journey of joy and suffering. The drama is rather straightforward and there isn’t anything particularly interesting about its storytelling, though Ripstein tells it in a solid, hard-hitting manner.
“Not all cockfights are straight.”
The Realm of Fortune is best seen as a moral tale—well, as the saying goes, money is the root of all evil. It asks us to beware of the soul-crushing consequences of being too sure of oneself, of thinking that wealth or success will last forever, especially one borne out of luck.
While Ripstein’s film is sometimes carnivalesque in nature as it shows working-class Mexicans trying to make ends meet in the busy market square, significant segments are set within the confines of Dionisio’s huge mansion (which he won after a night of hard gambling).
This mansion is in such a sorry state that you can smell its crumbling décor, very much symbolising Dionisio’s decaying state of mind—there is simply no whiff of a rosy future, except the rancidity of the present.
Grade: B+
Eternality Tan 