Two Crimes (aka Kissing Cousins)

It was 13 years between director Roberto Sneider’s first and second features. His latest, Tear This Heart Out, a sumptuous historical drama and Mexican box-office smash, was an official Oscar submission and screened in last fall’s Vancouver Latin American Film Festival. Two Crimes (also known as Kissing Cousins), a delightful comedy adapted from a novel by Jorge Ibargüengoitia, was Sneider’s debut, and won Mexico’s Ariel Award for Best First Feature. Damián Alcázar (the lead in Carlos Bolado’s Under California: The Limit of Time, also screening in this retrospective) plays Marcos, a Mexico City architect who finds himself flat broke and then falsely accused of a murder. He hightails it to the sleepy town of Cuevano, where he has family, and insinuates himself into the household of his wealthy uncle Ramon (José Carlos Ruiz). Irascible Ramon enjoys carousing with Marcos, and seems to buy Marcos’s lies: that he’s come to town to acquire a local gold mine — and maybe Uncle Ramon would like to invest? But Ramon’s sons are having none of it, and the ensuing manipulation and mayhem teaches big-city Marcos that small-town life may be more complicated (and dangerous) than he supposed. Colour, 35mm, in Spanish with English subtitles. 107 mins.