Another attempt for ‘Conquest’

Its tagline could be “Everything You Always Wanted to Know About the Aztecs But Were Afraid to Ask Mel Gibson.”

But writer-director Salvador Carrasco hopes that with the re-release of his movie “The Other Conquest” (La Otra Conquista) in U.S. theaters this month, comparisons or elaborate introductions won’t be required. That’s partly because Carrasco’s much-extolled first feature film, set during the bloody encounter between the Spanish conquistadors and Aztec king Montezuma’s empire, already has staked out a claim in the United States, or at least Los Angeles.

And though its story dates back nearly half a millennium, Carrasco believes his film may be more meaningful now than when it made its screen debut eight years ago. “With this kind of subject matter, the film is timeless,” says the 39-year-old director, speaking by phone from his Santa Monica home. “Sort of like with good wine, it has gained through the years and become more relevant.”

After “The Other Conquest” premiered in Mexico in April 1999, it became the top-grossing Mexican dramatic film at that time in the country, taking in $2 million. One year later, when it opened in Los Angeles, Times reviewer Kevin Thomas described it as “a boldly imaginative and enthralling evocation” of the conquistadors’ ransacking of the Aztec empire, and the subsequent attempt to convert what was left of the Indian population to Roman Catholicism. Thomas subsequently named “The Other Conquest” one of the best films of 2000.

Released on 75 screens in metropolitan Los Angeles, including both art-house venues and multiplexes, the 20th Century Fox Mexico release went on to gross $1 million in L.A. alone, an impressive showing for a subtitled period film shot on a $3-million budget. But despite the movie’s critical and commercial credentials, the U.S. distributor ran short of financing before the movie could open in other U.S. markets. Though Carrasco says that he and his producers “got DVD offers left and right” after the initial release, they held out, hoping that “a distributor with the right kind of vision would come along and offer us a chance to release it theatrically.”

Now Union Station Media, the independent, L.A.-based entertainment company that’s re-distributing the subtitled film, is betting the movie still has legs. “The Other Conquest” is being rolled out this month in theaters in Las Vegas, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. The Bay Area and other parts of California are expected to follow.

Its new distributors hope that as the film builds momentum through reviews and word of mouth it eventually will land in Chicago and New York and gain an L.A. encore. Union Station president Paul Gardner says his company has been promoting the re-release through churches, colleges and Latino businesses and conducting massive e-mail and leafleting campaigns. “It’s been seven years, and there’s a whole new audience,” he says.

Gardner says he’s not sure what impact, if any, last year’s release of Gibson’s “Apocalypto,” set in a decadent Mayan empire just before the Spaniards’ arrival, may have on the reception for “The Other Conquest” this time around. But he says Carrasco’s film “stands on its own merits.”

“Let people make their own comparisons once they’ve seen this film and once they’ve seen ‘Apocalypto,’ ” Gardner says. “If there’s a discourse, a discussion, that’s great.”

Produced by Alvaro Domingo and executive produced by his father, L.A. Opera general director Placido Domingo, who sings the movie’s closing aria, “The Other Conquest” was made on a relatively lean budget, yet sports the look of a much costlier epic. Filmed on location in and around Mexico City, its settings include several archeological and historic sites. The dialogue is in Spanish and the indigenous Nahuatl language.

The cast features Mexican and Spanish actors, most little-known in the United States, with Oaxaca native Damian Delgado filling the lead role of Topiltzin, a young Indian scribe who may or may not be Montezuma’s illegitimate son. As the only survivor of a Spanish massacre, he is taken under the wing of Friar Diego (Jose Carlos Rodriguez), who rechristens him “Tomas” and attempts to transform him into a model Catholic novitiate. The question of who actually ends up converting whom is one of the film’s many teasing spiritual inquiries.

Although it’s unusual for a feature film to be re-released such a short time after its premiere, it’s equally surprising that the movie got made in the first place. “ ‘It has an indigenous protagonist.’ ‘It’s not really commercial.’ I heard that stuff over and over again,” says Carrasco, who was born and raised in Mexico City and received a degree in film and television from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts in 1991. “Back in 2000 ... just the idea that a Mexican film would be distributed by an American company, it was inconceivable.”

Today, the cinematic landscape looks dramatically different. Young actors and directors such as Gael Garcia Bernal, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Alfonso Cuaron, Guillermo del Toro and Carlos Reygadas have raised the global profile of contemporary Mexican cinema. “We hope perhaps that ‘The Other Conquest’ contributed with its little grain of sand to open that door,” says Carrasco, who also directs television, writes poems and essays (his work has appeared in The Times) and teaches directing at Los Angeles Film School and Santa Monica College.

The director and distributor say that the movie’s central theme -- the violent collisions, as well as strange similarities, between competing faiths -- may have acquired more resonance with contemporary events over the last eight years. Though many people assume that the movie’s title refers to how the Spaniards colonized the Indians’ souls, Carrasco thinks the spiritual exchange was more of a two-way street. “In many ways they were talking about the same things and just calling it by different names,” he says of the Spaniards and Indians.

Perhaps the same could be said of certain movies. Carrasco’s intimacy with his intricate subject led to his being assigned to direct a “Dances With Wolves” sequel, collaborating with Michael Blake, who wrote the Oscar-winning screenplay of the original. It seems there’s a renewed interest in looking deeply at bygone worlds in conflict.

“I’m happy that ‘Apocalypto’ was made,” Carrasco says, “because I think it’s important to have a multiplicity of viewpoints about the subject matter. I wish there were 50 movies about the conquest.”

reed.johnson@latimes.com