Reviewed by Elliot V. Kotek Author: Malcolm Venville; 272 pages; Therapy Publishing; $80
Struck by the colorful confrontation of Malcolm Venville's Lucha Loco, alarm bells rang to instantly remind me of contemporary cinema's (cough, cough) classic, Nacho Libre with Jack Black. As much as satire is a form of flattery, Black's film resembles Venville's collection of photographs only in as much as they both pay homage to "luchadores": traditional Mexican wrestlers whose persona remains a masked mystery and whose legacy is often borne of past generations.
Adapted from Greco-Roman wrestling, lucha libre is a theatrical adventure as much as a sport. Second only to football in popularity in Mexico City, libre is playful, powerful and seemingly spontaneous; yet Venville's style of using an old-fashioned large plate camera to capture each fighter required the fighters to remain motionless for minutes between their striking the pose and the click of the shutter. The static nature of each fighter seems purposed to lay the luchadores exposed and vulnerable despite the cartoonish costumes, be they representative of cats, clowns, doctors of death, Ewoks, gangsters, Pinocchios, princesses or zombies. Accompanying each of the 120-plus pictures is the performer's "stage" name and one revelatory insight into the person behind the false facade, or, as Venville puts it, "the mind behind the mask."
Interestingly, Venville is the child of deaf parents, and it's to this upbringing he attributes his fascination with unspoken language. Photography is, after all, a soundless medium. In addition to prior photographic acclaim for his 2003 collection, Layers, and a successful advertising career as both a photographer and a commercials director, Venville has also had success in cinema. His short film, titled Silent Film, was well received in the UK, and Venville is on board to direct Texas Lullaby, a modern-day "loose" adaptation of Shakespeare's "Hamlet" starring fellow photographer Jeff Bridges (The Big Lebowski, Seabiscuit) along with Kim Basinger (9 1/2 Weeks, L.A. Confidential) and Alison Lohman (White Oleander, Matchstick Men).
While the luchaloco.com website's exclusive online interviews with the luchadores are fascinating, the book itself is worth more than a look, and was released in hardback in November. After the satirical cinematic treatment given the luchadores in Nacho Libre, Venville's 272-page preservation of these personalities delivers dignity along with its fun. |
