LGM Film Club, Part 181: Dos Monjes

I recently watched the fascinating 1934 film Dos Monjes, directed by Juan Bustillo Oro. A few things that make this film notable. First, it’s the oldest Mexican film I’ve seen. Second, it is considered one of the first horror films ever made in Mexico (though it’s much more horror in the classic Poe or Lovecraft sense than in the modern horror film sense). Third, and far more important, is the visual style. This is the real contribution. The talkies took the emphasis off visual style in filmmaking through the 30s, as the beauty of the spoken word became the natural emphasis and a flatness in cinematography took over as the industry standard for awhile. But here, Bustillo Oro attempts to apply German expressionism to a talkie around a fairly standard plot about two men who both love a woman and come to blows over it. While the story is kind of whatever and the acting fairly wooden, the visual style leads to some really outstanding moments. It’s inconsistently applied, but when it works, it really works. The other thing this film gets noted for is some people have noted it has Rashomon-type qualities two decades before that groundbreaking piece of cinema. But that’s not really true. Rashomon tells the same story from multiple perspectives while never coming to a conclusion about truth. That’s the point. Dos Monjes’ story starts with one of the men and then the other man fills in the story, but it’s open that the second man just knows that the first doesn’t know the whole story. So while the same story is told twice, it’s intended to fill us in on a greater truth, not challenge our notions of truth.

In any case, a worthy film that is worth your time.

The whole thing is available on YouTube, but only in Spanish. It’s also on Criterion Channel with subtitles.