

Immediately struck by her sultry beauty, Luis accepts Julia’s account of why she sent him someone else’s picture, and they are married.

Cuban businessman Luis Vargas (Banderas) prepares to meet his mail-order American bride, but when Julia Russell (Jolie) steps off the boat, she bears no resemblance to the plain woman in the photograph he’d received. This dynamic underscores “Original Sin,” the MGM release that opens today.

I’m trying to make films that entertain, but I have to go with what I know and what I feel and what I think is the makeup of people-and I see people who are aware of their sexuality and deal with it and who are aware of death and deal with it and who have an understanding about love or who pursue an understanding of love.”

I’m not making films that preach to anything. “These are things that we as a society pretend don’t have anything to do with us. “I think we’re in denial about sex, and we’re in denial about death and we’re in denial about love,” he said in a recent interview. Rather, he says, sexuality is an intrinsic element of the tales he’s telling. Nevertheless, Cristofer contends that he’s not out to deliberately flaunt sex as an attention-grabber. Ours is a reactionary culture, and the fear of sexuality is rampant in American society.”Ĭristofer has confronted what he perceives as that fear head-on in each film he has directed, from the 1998 HBO movie “Gia,” which catapulted Jolie to stardom, to 1999’s “Body Shots,” a look at the after-hours antics of a group of twentysomething urbanites. “And as soon as you have a guideline, there’s a reaction to the guideline. “The guidelines don’t help,” the director said. Steadfastly opposed to any ratings system, Cristofer carefully chooses his words, aware of the controversy surrounding the subject.
