Reviewed by Hunter M. Daniels

Preface: The following review contains major spoilers for one of the greatest stories ever told—Sophocles "Oedipus Rex." If you have not read or seen this play, do so. Also, it contains spoilers for the movie…which is a pretty close adaptation.  

THE MOVIE

Some of you, (the ones that took high school English) will undoubtedly remember

Oedipus Rex, Sophocles' infamous tragedy.  Those of you who are avid readers, or have taken college level English undoubtedly know Gabriel Garcia Marquez, author of masterworks of magical realism like "100 Years of Solitude" and "Love in the Time of Cholera." "Edipo Alcalde" is a marriage of the 2 where the latter updates the former's work into war torn Columbia.

The match is a smart one. Sophocles tragedy is intentionally provocative in ways that suit Garcia Marquez, who has a propensity towards kinky and illicit sex that pushes boundaries in his work. (The protagonist of "Love in the Time of Cholera" has had 622 affairs while preserving his emotional virginity for 50 years and the narrator of "Memoirs of his Melancholy Whores" wishes only for a night of sex with a 14 year old virgin as a gift to himself for his 94th birthday). Also, inherent in his magical realism is a sense of acceptance of fate, fortune tellers and mystics, all of which play major roles in both "100 Years of Solitude" and “Oedipus Rex.”

To recap, “Oedipus Rex” tells the story of the evil king Laius, who, after the rape and murder of a young boy, is cursed to have his son murder him, and then marry his mother.

To avoid this, Laius never touches his wife. However, inevitably (since Laius was lecherous enough to rape and murder a small boy) his urges get the best of him, and a son, Oedipus is born. To prevent the prophecy from coming true, Oedipus is left to die on top of a mountain. Unfortunately, Laius' order is not fulfilled and Oedipus is instead given to a young shepherd and then raised in a foreign kingdom.  

Years later, after Oedipus is told the same prophecy, he goes on a journey to find his real parents. Along the way, he kills a man, unbeknownst to the fact that the old man happens to be his father. Oedipus then gives up his quest to find his parents, but decides to stay away from his home in order to avoid fulfilling the prophecy. Of course, he ends up settling in the town where he was actually born. 

After defeating a monster by answering its' riddle, Oedipus is named king, and takes the queen (his mother) as his wife. Almost immediately, a great plague is visited upon the people of the kingdom. Oedipus promises to execute whomever is found to be the cause of the problem. He begins to investigate everyone in the kingdom, only to be told by the local soothsayer that he is the cause of the pollution, and has murdered the king.

Things only get worse as Oedipus begins to fear that his brother-in-law is guilty and trying to organize a coup. What's more, he receives word that the man who raised him and he thought of as his father had died of natural causes. Shortly thereafter, Oedipus realizes who the man he killed on the road was, and who his queen, and the mother of his 4 child, is. 

The queen finds out and hangs her self, and then Oedipus gouges out his eyes with a pin from her dress.

Garcia Marquez takes Sophocles basic storyline and strays from it only in his exclusions. Most of the set up is left out of the movie. Laius is never even a character in the film. He is only a presence felt and spoken about throughout. Thankfully, the rape of a young boy is excluded and replaced by a prophetic dream as the reasoning behind Laius’ curse.

Some subtext is lost with the decision to cut the subplot of Oedipus’ defeat of the monster. The name Oedipus refers to ‘known feet’ and he solves the riddle because of his intimate knowledge of walking with a cane (which was caused by his father chaining him to the mountain). This reinforces the element of fate in the story. Without it, things seem more up to sad coincidence.

As a fan of Garcia Marquez’s work, there are interesting carry-overs of his literary themes. Cruelty to animals is a harbinger of doom. Love and sex are at odds. There are characters who remain chaste is some sense for decades before consummating a flawed relationship. And, he even out does himself. Incest between mother and child is surely a more outlandish sexual topic than even sexual relationships with 14 year old girls (a topic covered, at length in at least 2 of his books).

The film is often thrilling with a palpable sense of danger and violence. The locations all look beautiful. The jungles are lush and real feeling. The whole affair feels top notch and very expensive. It looks like a $50 Million movie, though I am sure it was done for a fraction of that price.

Jorge Ali Triana has very few feature directorial credits to his name, but the man knows how to tell complex narratives quickly while still imbuing them with soul. Also, he moves the camera in ways that show great stylistic flair as well as dramatic pragmatism. 

The casting is top notch too. The concept of the protagonist sleeping with a woman 30 years his senior is made believable through smart casting. Jorge Perugorría looks a bit old for 30 and Angela Molina, who won a Fotogramas de Plata for her role, looks incredible at 41. Better than women half her age. She needed no body double in her copious nude scenes. The two make sense together physically and are both are excellent in their respective roles.

The movie is not perfect however. It only runs about 100 minutes, but it feels long. Also, the emotional epoch of the story, Oedipus removing his eye’s is left out. The film didn’t need the gore, but it felt like an awkward cut.

Still, for fans of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, or Greek Tragedy, this is a good buy.

THE DVD

For an obscure mid 90’s film that was never released theatrically in the US, the transfer is pretty good. The colors are vibrant and the picture is sharp. It is not a perfect transfer. Occasionally, the edges are hazy and there are some scratches, but for the small scale of this film’s history, the transfer is a good as can be expected.

There aren’t many special features to be found. There is a making of documentary that runs about 40 minutes. It’s not the average film love piece. The interviews are moderately in depth and the editing is fairly artistic. But, the whole thing looks like it was shot on video.

Side note: the subtitles on the film seem to be missing a lot. I don’t speak Spanish so I can’t tell for sure, but must of the dialogue lacked the pop you would expect from a Nobel prize winning author, even if he did write mostly through an omniscient narrator.

Film:8.5

DVD: 7