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Deep Crimson More at IMDbPro »Profundo carmesí (original title)

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15 reviews in total

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33 out of 45 people found the following review useful:
The Dangers of Passionate Love, 20 January 2003

Author: debblyst from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

The plot has been commented by other viewers, so let's move on. I saw this movie when it came out in theaters and loved it, especially the development of the plot (based on the same true events portrayed in Leonard Kastle's cult classic "The Honeymoon Killers") and the way Ripstein expertly evolves from black humor to suspense to bloody tragedy. I also loved the bolero-like title (say it in Spanish -Profundo Carmesí- beauuutiful), the choice of colors (thick greens, reds, blacks and browns), the set decoration, the actors, the all-imposing Catholic symbols and Catholic guilt which are so present in Latin American cultures...

So I thought it was a film about SICK love and misleading appearances, how harmless-looking people can hide sick violent personalities that may ignite under certain circumstances, never to return to what they were before.

A few years later, I happened to see an interview with Ripstein about this film, which urged me to see it again. He said it was a film about the dangers of romantic passion, tout court -- in the sense that passionate love is just one step away from isolation from society's values and conventions - and I thought "yes, this makes sense!". "Profundo..." is (also) about the pathological potential of any passionate love: the anti-social, selfish, self-consuming and potentially destructive behavior a love affair can trigger, to the risk of excluding friends, family and professional life from the lovers' agenda, and when nothing really matters except each other, their plans and their being together against all odds or reasons. Coral's behavior, dumping her children, lying, stealing, killing, marching on regardless of everyone else's feelings or actual physical integrity is a depiction of a sick personality...or is just a step or two further than the average person "madly" in love??

"Profundo Carmesí" is great, but do I have to mention not to expect anything uplifting? My vote: a good 8 out of 10, just don't see it if you've been recently dumped by your lover/husband/wife; it might give you bad ideas!!

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17 out of 19 people found the following review useful:
A stylish film, with a camera that roams elegantly around the cluttered interior of 1940s Mexico and occasionally out to the empty spaces of the plains…, 7 December 2008

Author: ironside (robertfrangie@hotmail.com) from Mexico

The best Mexican cinema has its roots firmly planted in popular genres… "Deep Crimson" is a crime film, based on the real exploits of the so-called Lonely Hearts Club killers in the post-war United States…

Nicolás and Colar are a grotesque version of Bonnie and Clyde, who rob not banks but vulnerable rich women…Nicolás is a middle-aged man of abundant charm with an unconvincing wig, who appeals to the snobbery of elderly widows by his ability to pose as a Spaniard, affecting the accent and mannerisms of the expatriate… Coral is an overweight single mother who drives her children and takes off with Nicolás, pushing him from robbery to murder…

Though money is the apparent motive, Coral is addicted to romance, as we see in the first shot of her bedroom, stuffed with cheap but gaudy clothes, Mills & Boon-type novels, and photographs of film stars… The killings the pairs commit are dictated by Coral's passion for Nicolás… He seduces women in order to steal them, and this incurs Coral's murderous jealousy…

Arturo Ripstein's film is essentially a study of thwarted passion turning repugnant… Coral is vicious, even to the extent of killing a young girl who has witnessed her mother's murder… Yet her gesture of offering her own hair to make Nicolás a new wig is at once tender and ridiculous…

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18 out of 26 people found the following review useful:
Gripping journey to the last drop of blood!, 25 June 2000

Author: raymond-15 from Australia

Smooth-tongued Nicolas and over-sized Coral meet through a sexy advertisement in the personal columns. Coral who adores Charles Boyer clings to Nicolas as the next best thing. They form a partnership and decide on a plan - to seduce rich women and make off with their money and valuables. It looks all too easy.The plan works well until Coral believes he might be over-doing the seductions and falling for the ladies. It really seems we are in for a good comedy. Nicolas is having trouble with his hairpiece and Coral really does have a weight problem.I guess the comic situations do accent the drama which is to follow. The frivolous dialogue starts to become more serious, especially when one of the victims informs them she has become pregnant. Because many of the homes visited are isolated in desert areas of Mexico, it would seem easy to dispose of a human being should that person be involved in some kind of accident.With cold determination Nicolas and Coral become involved in a new plan - one of murder. At this point we grip our seats and anticipate the worst for the unwary victim. The atmosphere is tense, no help is at hand and the murderers carry out their horrible plan. The ending I think is rather abrupt (some scenes have been edited out, perhaps) but it makes the point that crime does not pay. I have seen many road movies, but this one, I must confess, is the bloodiest of them all.

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17 out of 26 people found the following review useful:
Once again, Ripstein proves himself the king of Mexican cinema, 9 May 1999

Author: Gonzalo Melendez (gonz30) from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Mexican director Arturo Ripstein delivers one good drama after the other, and in so doing shows us ever changing aspects of this surprisingly rich country, so unfairly characterized around the world by cliched stereotypes. Though this crime drama doesn't help Mexico's image as a crime-ridden country throughout its history, it does tell a compelling story, free of cliches, of obsessed love driven to serial killings in an unusual road movie. This description, though long, sums up PROFUNDO CARMESI. Ripstein's direction is enhanced by the dramatic presence of Spain's Marisa Paredes in a crucial role. A must for those interested in contemporary Latin American cinema.

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10 out of 16 people found the following review useful:
Too much of a good thing., 7 September 2003
Author: abigailtate (abigailtate@yahoo.com) from Ann Arbor, Michigan

Viewed the film for the first time last night. I was familiar with the Raymond Fernandez and Martha Beck 'Lonely Hearts Club' murders for years. I had no idea it was turned into a film adaptation. I thought the film was done extremely well. It's disheartening to see two people who seem so insecure go to these lengths to feel they are loved by someone, seemingly anyone. Nicolas who seems to be in total control at the start of the movie, looses the ball.. and Coral, runs with it. He is a confidence trickster who has finally has met his match in Coral, she is just what he was so in need of, a woman who is willing to do anything it takes to be with him. This giving him a boost in his waning self confidence. Leaving her two young children at a doorstep of an orphanage, because he can't be bothered with them, was all she needed to prove her loyalty to him. They begin to portray themselves as brother and sister, in a scam across the countryside to take advantage of widows/lonely women on their own. This starts to go painfully wrong from the beginning. Coral agrees to not be jealous of Nicolas' affections/pursuits toward the women he is out to scam, after all, it's just part of the act. It seems a harder task for her than she assumed it would be. They manage to stay calm and in control all the way through this. The most bizarre thing about this film,is that it really did happen. As, I mentioned it was loosely based on the aforementioned murders. Although mainly a fictional work, some of the mechanics, were there. The strong need in some for submission from another. The longing for a loyal lover, romance and excitement. This remarkable blend of dark lust and true crime won't disappoint.

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3 out of 3 people found the following review useful:
The Seven Sins -- when perfection is far from an option..., 11 November 2009

Author: Ciara Calleja (cra123@u.washington.edu) from Tacoma, Wa

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Deep Crimson is so much more than a partner-crime movie. Of course there is the typical troubled couple that is pulled together with a goal of being together and getting rich, but to not leave it at that is what differs it from the American cliché of "Bonny and Clyde." The main characters Nicolas and Coral are terrific failures that make the audience almost want to pity them; they aren't perfect in looks, brains, skills, or anything really. Because of this, the movie presents issues of envy, vanity, greed, lust, wrath, gluttony, sloth within Nicolas and Coral alone. In other words, the characters of Nicolas and Coral are a perfect example of the seven deadly sins.

We see can see envy, gluttony, and sloth from Coral. She is constantly resorting to food, stuffing herself to stuff down her emotions, a typical sign of gluttony. This of course sets in with Coral's laziness, or sloth, she claims that she could easily loose the weight if she wasn't so lazy, when she first meets Nicolas. Because of her attitude on her weight and appearance, she easily grows jealous toward other woman that Nicolas tries to seduce in their "work," envying their position and looks.

Vanity and wrath are perfectly displayed by Nicolas; this of course is all resorted toward his wig. Once the wig is on he is a seducer, claiming that he can only work on "his looks," and the wig is the launching point for this vain stand-point. However, once a woman discovers that he has a wig he becomes fueled with anger and usually lashes out to the woman that has discovered his secret.

Both characters are driven by the sins of greed and sexual lust. Their entire motive is driven toward the greed of financial gain, to steel from woman that Nicolas attempts to seduce. However the two are driven by sexual lust, like the lust that Coral has toward Nicolas, or the trouble that Nicolas' lust has toward other woman he seduces.

Because of this, the sins the two commit, the audience realizes that they must die. As Coral says moments before she is shot to death, "I think this is the happiest day of my life." Making the ending one that is satisfying to the audience and the characters themselves.

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5 out of 7 people found the following review useful:
Tale of twisted people, 2 September 2007

Author: groggo from Toronto, Ontario, Canada

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Arturo Ripstein has long been known as a brilliant film director, and he shows us why in Profundo Carmesi (Deep Crimson).

In this 1996 film, Ripstein, in collaboration with writer Paz Alicia Garciadiego, makes us feel uneasy and uncomfortable, largely because he concentrates on two deeply flawed characters who are exaggerated versions of ourselves. There is a pattern here that is basic to art: the identification of ourselves in characters who should be, if logic holds, dismissed as too repulsive by half.

Unless you live in a permanent Happy Sunshine Camp, all of us share the two characters' traits to one degree or another: jealousy, fantasy, yearning, self-absorption, greed, loneliness, desperation; the list goes on. The big difference is that most of us don't yield completely to our obsessions and allow them to overtake and ultimately destroy us.

The lead players in this film (set in late-1940s Mexico) are Coral (Regina Orozco), an obese nurse, dreamer and part-time embalmer who yearns for Happiness Ever After with the most masculine of heroes, and Nicolas (Daniel Gimenez Cacho), a two-bit swindler and self-styled 'ladies' man' who exploits vulnerable, lonely women for sex and profit through lonely-hearts ads.

Nicolas is, in other words, the opposite of what Coral believes she needs to 'complete' her life, yet she falls hopelessly in love with him. But it's not love at all, but a dreamworld of folly; neither of these characters has the faintest idea what love is.

Despite their repellent behaviour, they are not without viewer sympathy -- they are more delusional and sadly deranged than anything else. In other words, they're very human, and that's the key in this film: we don't want to watch these pathetic creatures, but we do. Ripstein knows that if we look too closely we can see familiar (and unpleasant) pieces of ourselves.

This is based on a true story, and once again I'm left to repeat those famous words: you couldn't make this stuff up. Art imitates life to be sure.

The photography (by Guillermo Granillo) is stunning in a 'washed-out' reddish tinge that complements its authentic 1940s 'feel'. David Mansfield's music (a repetitive piano riff) is haunting and adds a perfect tone to the film. The acting is first-rate, especially by Cacho as the whining, migraine-ridden manipulator who is so neurotically attached to his hairpiece that he never wants Coral to see him without it.

The only real failing in this film for me is background. These are two really undesirable characters, but we don't know how they got that way. In the summing up, it doesn't really matter. This is a riveting, fascinating film from beginning to end.

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1 out of 1 people found the following review useful:
smfw@u.washington.edu, 12 November 2009

Author: sydneewilliams from United States

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Love is a twisted and sick thing, at least that's what I thought after watching "Deep Crimson". But what exactly was "Deep Crimson" portraying? Was it passionate love or a web of obsession between two insecure people who just so happened to collaborate and form a dynamic duo of insanity. I cant say that I found this movie to be humorous, but fascinating to say the least. With Coral referring to herself as "the fatty" after her daughter calls her overweight and Nico calling himself "a monster" after losing his toupee, they mirror one another. I seemed to correlate the mirrors in the film with the mirroring effect between the two main characters, Nico and Coral. As much as they were different, they were exactly alike, they both had an insatiable hunger for love and attention, they each had their insecurities neither of them could over come, no matter how much one complimented the other, and of course they both had the ability to manipulate the innocent people they preyed on. Between Corals jealousy and Nico's dependency on the woman who loves him (Coral) the film turned out to be a roller-coaster ride of excitement, passion and horror. The mirrors in the film showed who they really were, fat and bald, but they had each other. Two people who believed they deserved no one or nothing, found each other and there is no other way this film could have ended but with them both dying, because like Nico said to Coral in the film "how did I ever live without you?".

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5 out of 9 people found the following review useful:
Profundo Carmesí (remake of "The Honeymoon Killers"), 20 December 2005

Author: Indyrod from United States

Deep Crimson-Arturo Ripstein This is an absolute gem of a retelling of the famous TRUE "Lonely Heart's Club Killers". Originally made as the "Honeymoon Killers", this Mexican version is totally representative of the true story. An obese nurse connects up with a con artist, who is stealing from rich widows, using a newspaper lonely hearts club source. Soon, after the nurse goes nutzoid over this creep, she gives up her children, and joins him in ripping off and killing available divorcée's and widows. The original film is a favorite of mine, as it is extremely gruesome, but carries a black comedy edge the first 2/3 of the film, and then it gets extremely nasty. As in the original, the psycho couple must deal with a Mother and her Child, and it is depicted here pretty well, but not as gruesome as the original. Nevertheless, this version pulls no punches, and in the end, goes way way beyond the original. This was considered very very shocking stuff in the original "Honeymoon Killers", and the ending of this one is totally stunning. This Mexican version is almost as good, if not better than the original. The extremely disturbing story, which is true, is superbly well made in this version. If you see this version for the first time, you will want to see "Honeymoon Killers", and if you already know "Honeymoon Killers", then "Profundo Carmesí" is a rare treat. I can't recommend this movie any higher, with the exception of "The Honeymoon Killers". Take your pick, they are both gruesome, and disgusting as hell. The edge is, this actually happened.

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9 out of 17 people found the following review useful:
Odd, dark, and not for everyone, 24 March 2005

Author: George Parker from Orange County, CA USA

"Deep Crimson", a subtitled Mexican film, tells of a man who uses his hair-piece, good looks, and charm to bilk mature women out of their money. When he woos a very large and homely woman longing to be loved, she divests herself of her children, insinuates herself into his life, and goes off scamming with him while pretending be his sister. The backbone of the story is the strange symbiosis which develops between the partner/lover duo as we watch their relationship grow deeper and their scheming more nefarious. A moderately entertaining though schizophrenic film, "Deep Crimson" is too much of a comedy to be taken seriously and too much of a drama to be funny. The result is a marginally engaging film which will play best to those with a taste for black comedies from south of the border. (B)

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