We watched everything he had on hand. Not just the Reservoir Dogs / The Hateful Eight cycle, but the shorts, the minor collaborative pieces, other people’s work based on Q’s screenplays, and some throwaways for television. We visited the obvious sources with the intention of digesting these references before returning to the canonical corpus: City on Fire, Django, Once Upon a Time in the West, Game of Death (any excuse to go back to the great Bruce Lee), Unforgiven, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly… I was careful to avoid the work of challenging directors like Godard, Hitchcock, and Kurosawa, although we did watch and enjoy Seven Samurai, Band of Outsiders, and Vertigo.
Montaña hates anything pretentious, but he has a gift for spotting the nuances in a simple story. Even though he has watched a great deal of cinema, his frame of reference is basic. Among his favorites are Mackenna’s Gold, almost any classic Western, the two Scarface movies, Heat, Die Hard, Lethal Weapon, Under Siege, and anything with Dolph Lundgren or Van Damme. Plus El tunco Maclovio and the whole of Mario Almada’s catalog.
He always hated it when Quentin Tarantino appeared on-screen. During his scenes, Montaña would pretend to be busy with something else: filing his nails or making a sandwich in the kitchen. It was as though he loathed his own image in the hyperviolent mirror of parody.
“Why do you want to kill him?” I asked.
“Because he rubs me the wrong way.”
This was said in such a sinister tone that I never mentioned it again during the time we spent together in the bunker.
The movies, like everything else, came to us via Dante Mamulique, the administrator of Montaña’s patrimony. Contemporary artworks, antique furniture, kitsch armchairs bought in Galerías El Triunfo, fashionable attire that Jacobo treated like kitchen rags, electronic gadgetry, collectible toys, video games and consoles, jewelry designed by Teresa Margolles based on objects that had once belonged to my host’s victims: Dante Mamulique was a sort of Oscar Wilde, who (to fill life with beauty) sent bulging envelopes to a person who could not appreciate their contents; an unrepentant heir to Dostoevsky and Notes from Underground.
“The moron brought me a smartphone with an app for catching Pokémons. It’s clear as day he’s never lived thirty feet beneath the earth’s surface.”
Life in the bunker was pleasant but dreary. We had more than enough of everything, yet had lost the illusion of freedom. It’s not like I went out much when I was living in Aunt Rosa Gloria Chagoyán’s house: I used to order everything I needed online, and other than during breakfast, or when my aunt asked me to rub Fresca Pie into the backs of her knees, or the weekly day trip over to the other side to watch all the new releases in the multiplexes, I spent long hours in my room. The bunker, as I said, was more comfortable and full of amenities. But I missed the fiction of going out, and without fiction, human beings are like Olympic swimming pools with no water.
As the days passed, I got to know some of the security team and the two wives who accompanied Montaña in his ascetic life: silent people accustomed to obeying orders. I still believe there were children living there, despite the fact that they were never visible; I used to hear them in the distance in the late afternoon, possibly playing baseball or Nintendo. I also met a couple of suppliers, who brought news from the surface. Up there, they were killing one another with such brutality that it didn’t seem like such a bad idea to live forever in that fortress filled with the garden-scented plastic flowering plants that—at moments of peak lunacy—Jacobo used to water. In Laredo, Reynosa, and the Frontera Chica there were daily shootouts. The army and the federal police had occupied a luxury hotel in my hometown, turning it into a sort of barracks. Each and every member of the municipal police force had been arrested, charged with corruption and crimes against public health. And in Coahuila, a few minutes’ drive from our subterranean prison, they had just found a mass grave in which, it was said, half the inhabitants of a small town lay reduced to ashes.
I never associated that violence with my captor’s business activities. That may have been due to the aforementioned Stockholm syndrome, but it’s possible there’s a simpler, more egotistical reason. As the days went by, Jacobo turned into a disciple, at times an awkward one, but a disciple nonetheless: he attempted to follow my cinematic reflections on this or that scene, asked pertinent questions with an eagerness to hear the answer that none of my other students had ever displayed, was capable of sitting through three or even four movies without a break, and, finally, treated me with extreme deference in everything related to the seventh art. His enthusiasm, combined with the perfect portrait of Quentin Tarantino that was his face (when I asked him to shave and comb his hair, he consented; he had a barber brought in from Piedras Negras), prevented me from seeing him as a criminal. For me, Jacobo Montaña was an obscene mix of master and pupil. Likability is one of the most insidious packages of Evil.
I discovered that the bunker was much larger than I’d first imagined; in another era or a different place it could well have accommodated a small military complex. In addition to the main house and garden, there were storerooms, passages, unused games areas (for example, a small basketball court with just one hoop, but equipped with an electronic scoreboard, two rows of bleachers, and a floodlight), classrooms, and meeting rooms … After my third day in captivity, Montaña allowed me to take a solitary evening stroll through the underground world. “It’s not like you’re gonna escape,” he said with a laugh, by way of a warning.
I explored as much of our walled city as was possible. I don’t believe I saw everything: its tentacles extended beyond the Río Bravo, and I may even, at some point, have inadvertently crossed beneath the ground and water, from Mexico to the United States. In their confused plotting, those strolls represented the area of fiction that saved me from despair. Those, and cinema. Now that I come to think of it, cinema must be the art form that has the most in common with being confined in an ant colony thirty feet belowground.
It’s five in the afternoon, Venice Beach, California. Rosendo is sauntering along one of the walkways running parallel to the water. He’s carrying a supermarket bag. The scenic route abounds with dogs and their owners, roller skaters, skimpily clad people, “loverboys,” and vendors of medical marijuana. Rosendo enters a seafront motel. He opens the door to a room. Inside, on a king-size bed, is Gildardo. He has taken off his shirt. Between grimaces of pain, he’s carefully attempting to clean an open wound in his right armpit.
“This is all I could find,” says Rosendo grouchily, throwing the plastic bag at his colleague’s feet.
Gildardo leans over and inspects the contents: a bottle of Wild Turkey, a large packet of cotton balls, a bottle of peroxide, and a couple of comics.
Rosendo flops onto the other side of the bed. In the background a Norteño song plays softly:
I’ve got bad feelings
in my heart.
It’s just I can’t
afford your prices.
Don’t try me, babe
I’m playing straight.
Don’t force me to say
what I really think.
I’ve got bad feelings,
and it’s not from anger:
pain is prettier than rage.
What sadness leaves,
and you know it,
is the taste of the desert
in every place.
I’ve got bad feelings,
but they’re against myself:
you’re leaving me
because I’m playing it cool,
because the fire of my love
isn’t strong enough
to swim upriver
through your love.
I’ve got bad feelings in my guts
because it’s not promises
that deceive but the illusions
no one offered you.
Love is giving
what you don’t have
to someone who doesn’t want it,
and that was the story
between
you and me.
Gildardo opens the Wild Turkey and takes a swig from the neck. He goes on patiently treating his wound as they speak.
“So, you gonna keep up that sour mood? It ain’t my fault I saved your life.”
Rosendo glances at his wristwatch. He stands up.
“Forget saving my life. Just don’t ever again take me anywhere that crazy cokehead bitch suggests.”
“A job’s a job. If you wanna find Quintintino, you gotta go to every party in Hollywood, that’s what they say.”
“Yeah, Gildardo, but that wasn’t Hollywood. Melanie’s taking you for a ride. She goes on giving you tip-offs so you’ll buy her soda. And Mamulique’s funds aren’t going to last forever.”
“We ask for more.”
“Then Montaña’s gonna want to know what the fuck we’re doing with his money.”
“We’re following his orders.”
“We’re living it up, knucklehead. Parties, drugs, and women in L.A. Every day we get more like those soft dudes we’re always bad-mouthing.”
“Speak for yourself, asshole. You didn’t just get a knife stuck in your armpit.”
“They’re gonna kill us. For insubordination.”
“Only if we lose the thread. A job’s a job, and this time we got a sweet one. Take it from me, we’ll flush out Quintintino.”
“They all talk a lot, but it’s months since anyone saw him.”
“They’ve seen him, they just haven’t said where. No one goes and vanishes for months at a time. Not even if the moron’s name is Jacobo Montaña.”
“You’ll believe anything anyone tells you! What makes you think an actor’s going to turn up at a dogfight like that one last night?”
“He’s not an actor. Or at least, the boss hates him because he’s sometimes an actor, but that’s not all Quintintino is.”
“Square dick in a round hole. We were lucky to get out alive.”
“Because I saw them first, dude. If it hadn’t been for me, that bonerdome bastard would have had your guts on the floor. I’m still waiting for the thank-you card.”
“And you wouldn’t have a hole in your armpit if we’d steered clear of the sort of crummy dives Tarantino’s never going to show his face in. Forget about Melanie and let’s find another source.”
“What d’you mean, ‘Forget about Melanie,’ you knucklehead? You’ve seen the boobs on her. If you want another source, go find it yourself.”
There’s a knock on the door. Rosendo takes his gun from a drawer in the desk and sneaks a look out of the window. When he sees that the person knocking is young, good-looking, and blonde, he rolls his eyes. He lowers the gun and opens the door.
“Quihubo, Melanie?”
“Hi, Ros,” she replies without looking at him.
Melanie enters the room, closing the door behind her. She throws herself onto Gildardo, who is still cleaning his armpit.
“For god’s sake,” Gildardo says, wincing. “Wait, can’t you?”
Melanie rolls off Gildardo and, with an offended pout, retreats to one corner of the room. She picks up the bottle of Wild Turkey and takes a swig.
“You got anything?”
“Have you?” asks Rosendo.
Melanie ignores him. Gildardo rummages in the desk drawer at his side and extracts a small bag of cocaine. He hands it to Melanie, who takes a couple of snorts from the nail of her little finger.
“I think today’s the day, guys. DJ Daredevil is in town from New York, and my friend Lissie told me Q never misses one of his gigs. This is our lucky night.”
“You’ve been saying that for four fucking days, Mel,” says Rosendo as he returns the Magnum to the drawer.
Melanie perches on one of Gildardo’s thighs and unbuttons her blouse.
“This is L.A., sweetheart. If you want something, anything, you gotta be a party goblin.”
Gildardo kisses the nape of her neck.
“You wanna play?” asks Melanie. She takes off her blouse without removing her eyes from Rosendo for a moment.
Rosendo leaves the room.
Outside, the sun is dipping in the sky. Rosendo crosses the parking lot and walks on toward the beach. As he does, he takes a cell phone from the pocket of his jacket and dials a number. He waits. The phone rings a couple of times.
“Yes?” says a woman’s voice at the other end of the line.
“Estrellita,” Rosendo croons. “I’ve been wanting to call you so badly.”
“Rosendo, my love. How are you? I knew it was you.”
Estrellita—the woman on the other end of the line—is sitting in a wheelchair in the middle of an empty room. She’s around seventy and, judging by the milky whiteness of her eyes, is blind. Her apartment is in shadows. Behind her, rays of strong artificial light enter through the window.
“Where are you, Rosendo, my dear?”
Rosendo has reached the boardwalk by the beach.
“You’re not going to believe this: I’m in Los Angeles, California. I never imagined my job would take me so far.”
“Holy Mary, Mother of God. I hope you don’t come across too many of those movie actresses. They say they haven’t an ounce of shame. Give you the Judas kiss as soon as look at you.”
“Don’t worry yourself, Estrellita: not a single one of them has come my way. I’m in a very pretty place called Venice Beach. Shall we get started?”
“Just wait one second.”
Estrellita puts her cordless phone in her lap and wheels herself into the artificial light entering through the window. Once she arrives and is bathed in the external glow, she picks up the instrument again.
“There. Whenever you’re ready.”
“I’m walking along a wooden path: a boardwalk, they call it. The wood is the color of dark coffee, and very springy, like it was freshly cut and still moist. Two blond gringo guys in sleeveless T-shirts are coming toward me. They’re drinking beer, a brand that looks like small Caguamas, in brown paper bags. Their skin’s badly burned from so much time in the sun.”
“Wretches. Drinking in the street.”
“It’s the beach, Estrellita.”
“Ah.”
“Ahead of me there’s a girl with a dog. I don’t know what breed, but it’s real cute, long red hair. Jittery; it’s prancing about like it wants to run off.”
“A golden retriever, it has to be.”
“Yeah, I think so.”
“But, no, you said red hair, right?”
“Yeah, red.”
“Then it must be an Irish Setter.”
“You’ve got it, Estrellita. You should see how pretty it looks with the sun reflecting off its coat.”
“But isn’t it nighttime?”
“Not here, not yet. The sun’s only just going down. It’s two hours earlier in Los Angeles, Estrellita.”
“Heavens above.”
“Do you want me to describe the beach for you?”
“Oh, yes, please, go ahead.”
Rosendo gives her a detailed description of the sea, the sand, and what’s going on in Venice Beach. On the other end of the line his voice gradually disappears into the empty eyes of the elderly woman.
I know of two opposing views related to the notion that parody and the sublime are complementary, even at times interchangeable, aesthetic concepts. The first of these is the work of the novelist Hermann Broch. The second is a general theory of literature devised by Professor Harold Bloom.
José María Pérez Gay says that Broch’s first creation—dating from 1908, when the Viennese author was only twenty-two years old—was “a machine for blending textile fibers” that Hermann co-patented with the head of the local business school where he was a student. Broch was a prodigy who started writing late in life, in part because he dedicated his youth to being the relatively effective heir to his father’s textile mill, but also because of the philosophical complexity of his style. I’d like to underscore this irony (or if I allow myself to fall into excess, this parody—the unconscio
us is outside): the author’s first invention was “a machine for blending text(ile) materials,” and I will now abandon the industrial metaphor.
The context for Broch’s writing is the twilight of the Austro-Hungarian aspiration to classical status, an incarnation of Western thought that Pérez Gay analyzes in El imperio perdido. The Austro-Hungarian Empire is to neoliberal thought what the Soviet Union is to Marxism-Leninism, and I’m surprised that the twenty-first century should have so little curiosity about the former of those two cultural failures. Not in historical or political terms, but simply as tragedy.
In the early twentieth century, Germanic novelistic thought was— like Proust’s and Joyce’s—deeply concerned with the problem of the sublime. But in contrast to Thomas Mann, whose discourse always displayed an element of paradox, the Austrians Robert Musil and Hermann Broch attempted an impossible flight—a fugue in the musical sense: to rewrite the architext; not to generate a pristine narrative event, without genealogy. This attempt—at once guttural and aristocratic—to return to origins and renounce parody (that is to say, tradition) is evident in Musil’s The Man without Qualities and Broch’s most celebrated narrative trilogy, The Sleepwalkers. But it is also an impulse that appears in “Worldview of the Novel,” an essay by Broch from which Pérez Gay translates the following passage:
If there exist moral exigencies in art—and a brief stroll through artistic circles should be enough to convince anyone that they are indeed necessary—they should be formulated in the manner of prohibitions: “One should not imitate in part or whole other works of art, for in this case one will create kitsch”; or “One should not work with an inordinate concern for the results, for in this case one will create kitsch”; and finally, “One should not confuse the work of art with adherence to dogmatic principles for the production of said work, for in this case one will certainly produce kitsch.” One who produces kitsch is not one whose production is an inferior kind of art, nor one who is partially or totally ignorant of art, for such a person cannot be measured according to the standards of aesthetics, rather we must accept— now, as you may have guessed, we find ourselves in the realm of talking films and operetta—that we are definitely dealing with a morally degraded person, a delinquent with evil inclinations and no scruples. Or, to put it in less pathetic terms, such a person is decidedly a pig. And we draw this conclusion based on the fact that kitsch represents evil within the realm of art. Would you prefer an archetypal example of kitsch? Nero playing his lute before the bodies of Christians enveloped in flames: He is the archetypal dilettante, an authentic esthete who sacrifices everything in his intent to create an aesthetic effect. The true artist, on the contrary, is not concerned with sublime effects. His only concern is diligence.
Bring Me the Head of Quentin Tarantino Page 11