CINEMA-COLOMBIA: ‘Ilona’ a Box-Office Smash

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Maria Isabel Garcia

SANTAFE DE BOGOTA, Oct 22 1996 (IPS) - Cinema-goers are lining up across the nation to see ‘Ilona Arrives with the Rain’ – a movie based on the novel by Alvaro Mutis and directed by Sergio Cabrera – which appears destined to be Colombia’s first box office hit.

The film is being screened at 40 cinemas, four times a day, despite first appearing more than one month ago. This would not be news if the film was a Hollywood blockbuster but, in a country used to believing that local productions are not of the same calibre, it is a big development.

The box office appeal of ‘Ilona’ is a good sign for attracting investment to an industry where government support is scarce and many screenplays wait to be produced.

‘Ilona’ – as both the novel and film are known – is a co- production involving Colombia, Italy and Spain in an investment of 3.2 million dollars. It took three months to shoot – mostly in Havana, but also in Bogota, Panama and Rome – and, before that, five years of work went into the screenplay.

The movie runs for 135 minutes and revolves around the trilogy of Maqroll El Gaviera, a character with no clear nationality, the Italian Ilona Grabowska, and the Lebanese Abdul Bashur – all world citizens and adventurers who populate the Mutis’s prose.

The 73-year-old writer, whose first got involved with cinema when he dubbed the voice of Walter Winchel in ‘The Untouchables’ and for 23 years sold “canned” movies in Latin America, was moved to tears by the reincarnation of the characters in his book onto the screen.

“I do not know how to make my characters speak, and now I see them right there, in the flesh. But what surprises me the most is that the movie is not literature: it is film,” the author said.

He saw the film during the first week of September, at the Venice Film Festival, where ‘Ilona Arrives with the Rain’ together with ‘Deep Red’ by Mexican filmmaker Arturo Ripstein, were the only Latin American films competing for the Gold Lion.

In the smokey environment of La Sabana train station in Bogota — where the first scene takes place — Abdul, Ilona and Maqroll, meet for their farewell, reminisce about better days, and renew a pact to meet again.

“I hadn’t cried since the death of my brother, but this time I couldn’t help it: I felt as if they had been taken out of my guts,” said the writer.

The film did not receive good reviews in Italy. In the French city of Biarritz, however, the Colombian film was awarded first prize from the audience and its protagonist, Margarita Rosa De Francisco (Ilona), won the best actress award.

Many in the crowds that flock to see the film are not necessarily followers of Mutis’s high-brow literature, but rather fervent fans of the actress, who has played in many popular soap operas. This is the first time the actress played in a feature film.

In Biarritz, ‘Deep Red’ was awarded first prize for best film by a jury headed by Luis Berlanga, of Spain, but fell to fourth place in the audience’s choice.

“I make films for the public, and their reaction is the one that is the most important to me,” said Cabrera. He added that ‘Ilona Arrives with the Rain’ is only his fourth feature-length film, while Ripstein has made more than 25.

In his own country, Mutis is a very popular in certain circles, and for the last decade his work — which had a low profile in the local market for many years, in contrast to its popularity in Europe — has been gaining more and more followers. Still, both the film and the book have received mixed reviews here.

With a certain arrogance, or perhaps as a defense mechanism against the voracity of local critics, Cabrera has declared that ‘Ilona’ is “perfect” for the level which he intended.

“I wouldn’t have done anything different, even if I had had more money or time. This is the best I can do right now,” he added.

For the director — who had already achieved local box-office success with ‘The Strategy of the Snail’, for which, like Ilona, the screenwriter was Argentine Jorge Goldemberg — the greatest challenge was “to be faithful to Mutis”.

What attracted the director to the work of the writer was the nature of the characters, their “unrootedness”, if not there failure to find happiness.

He was also motivated by the desire to move Latin American film away from the stereotype of films with a “message”, and Mutis, he said, is the most cosmopolitan of writers.

“Europeans and North Americans are convinced that adventure films should be made by ‘gringos’, philosophical films by Europeans, and political films by countries of the Third World,” argued Cabrera.

“Ilona demonstrates that we have the right to set our sights beyond that, to tell love stories, and open doors which have been closed to us,” he said.

That coincides with the opinion of another Colombian director, Lisandro Duque, who revindicates Latin American cinema for its innovation and diversity.

Latin American film “is not one of formulas; it does not have the impoverishing syndrome of North American film which consists of working on themes in terms of market appeal,” says Duque. “Each of our films is a founding event, from the thematic point of view. And even if themes are repeated, their treatment isn’t,” he concludes.