RUDO Y CORSI

Written and Directed by Carlos Cuaron
Starring Gael Garcia Bernal, Diego Luna and Guillermo Francella


Batuto: Everything in life is a bet. The soccer ball either hits the goal post and bounces out or it bounces in and becomes a goal.

There is nothing like the bond between brothers and there could be no better screen brothers than Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna in the Mexican soccer comedy, RUDO Y CORSI. They may have only really made one film together prior to this one (that being Y TU MAMA TAMBIEN), but the two understated actors have such a great camaraderie together on screen that it seems only natural that they be paired up as often as possible. Last time out, Bernal and Luna played best friends that crossed a certain line most bromances never do. This time out, they return and reunite with the co-writer of Y TU MAMA TAMBIEN, Carlos Cuaron, who wrote that film with the director and his brother, Alfonso Cuaron (CHILDREN OF MEN). As brothers, there is no line to even consider crossing so all we’re left with is brotherly love – from the comfort and confidence that only brothers can share to the intense competition that only brothers know better.


RUDO Y CORSI translates to “rough and corny”. Luna is Rudo and Bernal is Corsi, despite both actors’ pleas to Cuaron that they each felt more closely related to the other character. Cuaron, Carlos that is, cast them in the opposite roles for exactly this reason. These brothers have grown up in shacks and both have big dreams of living well someday. They run their daily game in the banana fields and their weekend games on the soccer field, where they are both discovered by wily talent coach, Batuto (Guillermo Francello). The trouble is, he can only bring one of the two to the big leagues and a penalty shot decides that Corsi will be joining. Rudo ends up going as well later but the damage has been done. The two are forced to live with each other and play against each other while the public eats them up and they fall prey to the pratfalls of a fast paced life in Mexico City. Their sincerity never leaves them though and it is their small town sensibility that gets them through their troubles even though it is arguably what got them there to begin with.


Cuaron stepped up his role from writer on Y TU MAMA TAMBIEN to writer/director for RUDO Y CORSI, and his transition is a pretty run across the field. His decisions are sometimes questionable but they are always consciously being made and appreciated. The most peculiar of his decisions is not including that much footage of Rudo, Corsi or anyone else for that matter actually playing soccer. We don’t see the game that got them noticed; we don’t see the goals that got them famous. Instead, soccer becomes this mythical place where they are both gods and we get them when they are away from where they excel and are revered. In other words, we get to see them when they’re just trying to make it all work. In doing so, Cuaron may alienate people expecting a straightforward sports film but he grounds the brothers and the movie by tying them closer to the people off the field instead. And even though we cannot see it, we know Cuaron made the goal.

MILK

Written by Dustin Lance Black
Directed by Gus Van Sant
Starring Sean Penn, James Franco, Emile Hirsch, Diego Luna and Josh Brolin


Harvey Milk: How do you teach homosexuality? Is it like French?

It was difficult for me to stand up after seeing Gus Van Sant’s masterful MILK. The lights had already come on so my puffy eyes could be hid no longer but I had forgotten how to move. I was too engulfed with sadness and dismay. All I could think about was how far we think we’ve come as a supposed progressive people. Harvey Milk, the man whose story Van Sant is telling, was elected into public office in the late ‘70’s in San Francisco. He was the first openly gay man to be elected to any significant level of government in American history. He was also shot and killed after being in office for less than a year. His last major political accomplishment was successfully campaigning to defeat a bill called Proposition 6. This bill would call for the dismissal of all openly gay school teachers and any persons who supported them. The bill had already passed in a number of other states and fear was mounting that even the country’s most gay-friendly city might follow suit. Harvey wouldn’t have it and ultimately, neither would San Francisco, or all of California for that matter. Why then are gay men and women still struggling to be treated like human beings to this day?


MILK picks up Harvey Milk’s life in the eight years preceeding his assassination. In that time, he meets a man who would become his lover for many years; he moves from New York to San Francisco to find new challenges; and he runs a number of times for public office as an out and proud gay man. He also loses a number of times but Milk was not a man who could easily be deterred from his very important goal. It was Milk’s mission to represent his people; to show the city he loved that the gay population was one of the reasons that the city itself was so well loved by all who visited and that they too had a powerful and reasonable voice. Milk was committed to making sure that voice was heard. Van Sant, an openly gay man himself, is just as committed to the cause but his part is very different. Even today, the image of the gay man is still being sold to mainstream, or straight if you will, audiences in a delicate way. Van Sant’s Milk is an ambitious entrepreneur. He has a strong character, funny and flighty one moment, romantic and intimate the next and always dedicated to the bigger picture outside of himself. Apparently, painting the gay man as human is still necessary because many still haven’t figured it out for themselves.


Of course, Van Sant can’t get all the credit as he is only as strong as his parts. In this case, his parts are all perfect. “Big Love” staff writer, Dustin Lance Black’s sensitive screenplay is heartbreaking and genuine. Director of photography, Harris Savides, who has brought a dreamlike lucidity to Van Sant twice before on GERRY and ELEPHANT, goes back and forth between archival and new footage seamlessly planting the viewer in both the historical context and the surrounding human drama. Danny Elfman fills the soft space with a score so layered, it can easily be described as his most original work in recent memory. And then of course, there are the men. I will never describe a straight man playing a gay role as an act of bravery. I will, however, always applaud an actor’s ability to shed their entire ego and transform into another being so fearlessly. The caliber of the mostly male ensemble cast of MILK seems raised by a desire to do justice to this important man and the difference he made. James Franco as Milk’s longtime lover continues to show versatility that I never expected by embodying support and strength. Josh Brolin, as the fellow city supervisor who ultimately kills Milk, gives a ferociously internal performance that is in constant turmoil. And though I have never been as huge a Sean Penn fan as most would appear to be, I am a devout admirer now. Penn’s performance is a rarely achieved transformation – one so believable and so gripping that it lifts the entire film to new levels of excellence and inspiration.


MILK is not only a Gus Van Sant career high but also an instant American film classic and a contemporary gay film masterpiece that, like the revelatory BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN, transcends the gay experience and steps firmly into the human experience. If only for that reason alone, MILK has the potential to be more than a film and be part of a movement. After all, if there is one thing that Harvey Milk fought so hard for for so long, it was to be seen as a man who deserves the same human rights as his neighbours. Thirty years after his death, the fight he fought is still ongoing and thanks to Van Sant, Harvey Milk is back to help make sure it finally gets won.