Nine keys to Nine Queens, the film with Ricardo Darín that returns to theaters

He knew how to reconcile art cinema with popularity, and it was the first great success in a new wave for Ricardo Darin. Nine Queensthe movie of Fabián Bielinskywill 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 the time of the National College of Buenos Aires he carried out Continuity of Parksadaptation of a story by Cortázar, and to graduate from ENERC, the INCAA Film School, he directed The wait (1983), short film with Borgesian inspiration. After Nine QueensHe directed The aura (2005), also with Ricardo Darín as the epileptic taxidermist Esteban Espinosa. TO The aura he liked to define it as “a psychological thriller,” unlike Nine Queenswhich was “a comedy with two thieves” that imbibed the spirit of The hit (1973), de George Roy Hill.

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.

Below, nine curiosities about Nine Queens.

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.

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 one referring to Nine Queens.

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 (Gaston 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.

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 viewed film of the year, behind Dinosaur, Dad is an idol y Mission Impossible 2and above the Oscar winner American Beauty and Hollywood tanks like Gladiator, Stuart Little y A perfect storm.

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.

Nine Queens It had a painful Hollywood adaptation, produced by George Clooney and Steven Soderbergh. The premiere of Criminal It 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 (wife of Nick Jonas) and Ritesh Deshmukh.

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.

The song that Juan refers to several times during the film is Rita Pavone’s 1976 hit The brick’s dance del LP There is no one like you, 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 a matter of Two on the landing (1976), which co-starred Rita Pavone.

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.

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.