Arriaga, Guillermo 1958-

PERSONAL:

Born 1958, in Mexico City, Mexico; married. Education: Universidad Iberoamericana, B.A., M.A.

CAREER:

Film producer, screenwriter, and novelist. Universidad Iberoamericana, former member of faculty; Instituto Tecnologico de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey, Monterrey, Mexico, member of staff.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Academy Award nominations for best foreign film, for 21 Grams, Amores perros, and The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada; best screenplay nomination, British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA), for 21 Grams; best film not in the English language award, BAFTA, and Critics Week Grand Prize and Young Critics Award from Cannes Film Festival, all 2000, all for Amores perros; Palme d'Or for best screenplay, Cannes Film Festival, 2005, for The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada.

WRITINGS:

Escuadrón guillotina (novel; title means "The Guillotine Squad"), 1991.

Un dulce olor a muerte (novel; title means "The Sweet Scent of Death"), 1994.

El búfalo de la noche, 1999, translated as The Night Buffalo (novel), Atria (New York, NY), 2006.

Amores perros (screenplay), 1999.

The Hire: Powder Keg (screenplay), 2001.

21 Grams (screenplay), 2004.

The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (screenplay), 2005.

Babel (screenplay), 2006.

Contributor to book Drama contemporáneo costarricense: 1980-2000, edited by Carolyn Bell and Patricia Fumero, Editorial de la Universidad Costa Rica (San José, Costa Rica), 2000.

SIDELIGHTS:

Although best known in his native Mexico as a novelist, Guillermo Arriaga is celebrated in the United States and Europe as an award-winning screenwriter of such films as 21 Grams and The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, the latter marking the successful directorial debut of actor Tommy Lee Jones. The author considers himself a novelist first who then adapts his books into film. A common theme that runs through many of Arriaga's films is death. He is "unapologetic about his obsession with death," noted a Guardian Unlimited contributor, "describing himself as ‘thanatic,’ a word which barely exists in Spanish, and crops up in serious Freudian discussion in English as thanatotic, to do with death. ‘I think there are two kinds of people; thanatic and erotic. And I am a thanatic, I am obsessed with death. I think contemporary societies are denying death more and more.’" In his philosophy, Arriaga believes that to think about the reality of death makes one appreciate life all the more, and he disparages modern filmmakers who cheapen life by offering wholesale lethal violence in their movies.

The author often collaborates with director Alejandro González Iñárritu, and their films, such as 21 Grams, deal with death in an open way. The title of this film comes from the myth that when someone dies they lose twenty-one grams of weight, which is the weight of the human soul. "Arriaga's screenplay concentrates on the metaphorical idea of weight; the weight of a human life, and the weight that transfers on to those we leave behind," explained the Guardian Unlimited writer. "A study in grief, loss and guilt, 21 Grams is not a barrel of laughs. But it is—to use its own terms—wonderfully weighty." In The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, a rancher goes on an epic journey to fulfill his dead friend's request to be buried in his hometown in Mexico.

Arriaga first gained attention as a novelist in the United States when his El búfalo de la noche was translated in 2006 as The Night Buffalo. The story is about Manuel, who has a relationship with his best friend Gregorio's girlfriend. After Gregorio learns of the love affair, he tells Manuel he forgives him. Soon afterwards, however, Gregorio commits suicide, and the rest of the book concerns how the survivors deal with that death. A number of reviewers in the United States did not find this American debut successful. A Kirkus Reviews contributor, for example, felt that the constant cerebral contemplations by the characters "wears thin over a couple hundred pages with minimal narrative momentum. The resolution offers too little, too late." Lawrence Olszewski, writing for Library Journal, considered the story "neither meaningful nor particularly original." And a Publishers Weekly critic, somewhat ironically given Arriaga's statement that he is a novelist first, concluded that work would have worked better as "an atmospheric, tightly structured film than … this unsubtle, claustrophobic novel."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, June 1, 2006, Benjamin Segedin, review of The Night Buffalo, p. 33.

Kirkus Reviews, April 15, 2006, review of The Night Buffalo, p. 363.

Library Journal, April 1, 2006, Lawrence Olszewski, review of The Night Buffalo, p. 80.

Los Angeles Times, October 4, 2006, Jay Fernandez, "Creatively Brilliant, but Tensions Simmer," article about Guillermo Arriaga and Alejandro González Iñárritu.

Publishers Weekly, February 27, 2006, review of The Night Buffalo, p. 33.

ONLINE

Guardian Unlimited,http://www.guardian.co.uk/ (February 13, 2004), "Paper Weight," review of 21 Grams and interview with Guillermo Arriaga.

New York Theatre Wire,http://www.nytheatre-wire.com/ (November 27, 2006), Brandon Judell, "21 Grams of Guillermo Arriaga," interview with the author.

Simon Says,http://www.simonsays.com/ (November 27, 2006), brief biography of Guillermo Arriaga and summary of The Night Buffalo.

The Tomb: Time Out Movie Blog,http://www.timeout.com/ (March 31, 2006), Chris Tilly, "Guillermo Arriaga Interview."

Twitchfilm.net,http://www.twitchfilm.net/ (November 27, 2006), "The Night Buffalo—Interview with Guillermo Arriaga."