Deep Crimson

Arturo Ripstein's 1996 Mexican film departs from a real series of murders committed in the United States in the late 1940s, a case previously filmed as The Honeymoon Killers. Ripstein moves it to Mexico in 1949. Coral, a nurse, answers a lonely hearts advertisement and meets Nicolás, a confidence trickster. The two take to the road; he seduces lonely women and she, out of jealousy, kills them. The film does not make the murders material for suspense; it is about the dependence between two people and how pitiful and destructive that bond is. Paz Alicia Garciadiego's script never makes the pair likeable. It premiered at Venice. Years later Ripstein assembled a longer version restoring his own cut. Who it's for: viewers who like the dark end of Latin American cinema and true crime adaptation. Who it's not for: anyone wanting a character to sympathise with and violence kept in proportion.