DARK CITIES

Even the rare scenes set in the sunlight seem Stygian in DARK CITIES, an intertwining of a devil's dozen Hubert Selby-esque short stories by Spanish writer Juan Madrid, transposed from the writer's Madrid to the old quarter of downtown Mexico City. Like the Gorbals in Glasgow and Hell's Kitchen in NYC, this is legended, squalid urban territory for outlaws, junkies, down-and outs and ordinary people, crowded together in a jumbled mass. There is very little demarcation to where the criminals end and police begin (both demand their protection money, and react rashly when payment is delayed) and the route from gutter to grave can be as short and sharp as the stiletto heels of Lola and Zez?, two whores with different varieties of man trouble and nowhere to turn but their own (fatal) resources. A swaggering thug philosophically bears the name Satan; a vagrant performs euthanasia on a cohort whose madness has made him a pathetic embarrassment to the bum profession; a teenage boy struggles to live up to the macho ideal of his father, a man who can't even keep proper account of who he killed and when. By casting actors best known for comedy work in grotesque parts and shooting on digital-video, with its wide lenses and stuttery edits, Fernando Sari?ana guides you through a pulp-fictional walk on the night side. (In Spanish with English subtitles)