He knew how to reconcile art cinema with popularity, and it was the first great success in a new wave for
Ricardo Darín
.
Nine Queens
, Fabián Bielinsky
's film
, will be re-released in theaters this Thursday, February 22, in a remastered version in 4K format.
The Argentine film production company Patagonik was in charge of the digitization work on the film.
The digitization of the film was made from a frame-by-frame scan of the original 35 mm image negative, preserved by the Patagonik production company and the Buenos Aires Cinema Museum.
Under the supervision of the film's director of photography, Marcelo Camorino, the cleaning and digital restoration work was carried out, as well as a new color correction to recover the original features.
The sound restoration was carried out in the Netherlands, based on Dolby Digital digitization.
Fabián Bielinsky loved cinema since he was a child.
During his time at the National College of Buenos Aires, he made
Continuity of the Parks
, an adaptation of a story by Cortázar, and to graduate from ENERC, the INCAA Film School, he directed
The Wait
(1983), a short film with Borgesian inspiration.
After
Nine Queens
, he directed
El aura
(2005), also with Ricardo Darín as the epileptic taxidermist Esteban Espinosa.
The
Aura
liked to define it as “a psychological thriller,” unlike
Nine Queens
, which was “a comedy with two thieves” that imbibed the spirit of
The Coup
(1973), by George Roy Hill.
Ricardo Darín, Gastón Pauls and Leticia Brédice, the protagonists of the success of 2000. Photos Clarín Archive
Bielinsky, who was born on February 3, 1959, died very young, at the age of 47, on June 29, 2006, of a heart attack while he was sleeping.
He was in San Pablo, casting for an advertisement.
Next, nine curiosities from
Nine Queens
.
Fabián Bielinsky died very young, at 47 years old, of a heart attack in São Paulo, Brazil.
Bielinsky had finished the script in 1997, after writing it for 8 weeks.
In mid-1998, he was the winner, among 354 scripts, of that “New Talents” contest, whose jury was chaired by José Martínez Suárez, Mirtha Legrand's brother.
The contest was organized by the production company Patagonik Films.
Curiously, Patagonik had rejected it shortly before.
One of the iconic scenes: Marcos (Darín) and Juan (Pauls) run when the Nine Queens are stolen.
Two years before the premiere of
Nine Queens
, director Carlos Sorín called me at his production company.
The idea was to have an interview, and he told me that his assistant and co-writer would be there.
It was Fabian Bielinsky.
That film was never filmed, but Fabián, who was a graduate like me from ENERC, the INCAA film school, when the talk ended, he pulled me aside and told me: “I just won the 'New Talents' contest and I'm going to film it. my first movie.
Can we make a note?”
We did it, and that interview was the first referring to
Nine Queens
.
"Nine Queens" takes place over the course of just over a day.
The film takes place in just over 24 hours.
Two scammers who work stealing with tricks on the street, cross paths.
Marcos (Ricardo Darín) is experienced, Juan (
Gastón Pauls
), an apprentice.
The first rescues the inexperienced Juan from arrest, after failing to attempt a scam in a store.
And he tells her about an immediate deal: the sale of a collection of fake stamps for half a million dollars, the "nine queens", from the Weimar Republic.
Juan needs 70,000 pesos to get his father out of jail, he asks Marcos to join the business.
The rest is history.
Leticia Brédice, Tomás Fonzi and Ricardo Darín, at the Hilton Hotel, in Puerto Madero.
Fabián Bielinsky's film was released on August 31, 2000 and was an unexpected success.
Its 1,194,633 viewers placed it as the fourth most-watched film of the year, behind
Dinosaur
,
Daddy's an Idol
and
Mission Impossible 2
, and above the Oscar-winning
American Beauty
and Hollywood Tanks like
Gladiator
,
Stuart Little
and
Una Perfect storm
.
The VHS cover of "Nine Queens"...
The film, which was not filmed on a movie set, but in real locations, was nominated for twenty-nine international awards, of which it won twenty-one.
Considered a masterpiece, in a 2022 survey of the 100 best films of Argentine cinema, it came tenth.
Fabián Bielinsky (best director and original screenplay) together with Ricardo Darín (best actor), celebrate the Silver Condor for best film.
Nine Queens
had a painful Hollywood adaptation, produced by George Clooney and Steven Soderbergh.
The premiere of
Criminal
was at the 2004 Venice Film Festival, and the cast was made up of John C. Reilly (the character of Darín), the Mexican Diego Luna (the character of Gastón Pauls) and Maggie Gyllenhaal (the character of Leticia Brédice, Valeria). .
She missed the whole robbery game, she was boring and pitiful.
It was the directorial debut of Gregory Jacobs, who served as Soderbergh's frequent assistant director.
There was also an Indian version (made in Hindi), titled
Bluffmaster!
(2005), starring Abhishek Bachchan, Priyanka Chopra (now Nick Jonas' wife) and Ritesh Deshmukh.
"Criminal" was the title of the remake of "Nine Queens."
Criminal was what they did.
John C. Reilly, the Mexican Diego Luna, who looks up, and Maggie Gyllenhaal, the protagonists of the Hollywood film.
During the filming of the scene in which Juan and Marcos run after a motorcycle, Gastón Pauls fell and injured his knee and was taken to the Argerich hospital where he received four stitches.
Gaston Pauls and Fabián Bielinsky, when they passed through Madrid for the premiere of the film.
Gastón suffered an accident while filming.
The song that Juan refers to several times during the film is Rita Pavone's 1961 hit
Il Ballo del Mattone
, written by Eduardo Verde and Bruno Canfora.
As for the film in which the song is supposed to appear, no reference can be found, but correlating dates could only be
Due sul pianerottolo
(1976), which co-starred Rita Pavone.
Darín and Pauls play distrust.
There was a project to adapt the film into a television series format.
The founders of BTF Media, Ricardo Coeto and Francisco Cordero, announced it on the 20th anniversary of its premiere, in 2020. “We are pleased to bring such an iconic piece back to light.
This remake will also be legendary.
This is a clever story full of twists that is certainly enjoyable to watch.
“We are very confident that it will attract a large audience.”
To date, there has been no news about the completion of the project.
(And a yapa)
Marcos is the experienced one, and Juan, the apprentice, according to the script that Bielinsky wrote in only 8 weeks.
In the final scene (spoiler in case you haven't seen the film), the audience discovers that the rich Spaniard who bought the Nine Queens is an Argentine swindler, and not a Galician businessman.
But, in reality, the actor was Ignasi Abadal, born and raised in Barcelona, Spain.
For a person born and raised in Argentina it would have been difficult to speak with a Spanish accent for a long time without his compatriots noticing.
In short, one of the best thrillers in the history of Argentine cinema, which, although it is often shown on cable or open television, is well worth seeing (or discovering) again where it was born, on the big screen.