A mesmerizing fable about decline and decadence, The Realm of Fortune is both stark and baroque in its transformation of the remotest Mexican hinterlands into a mythic world of Pyrrhic victory and ritualistically humiliating defeat. Based on a story by legendary Mexican author Juan Rulfo, The Realm of Fortune was the first of Ripstein's films with a screenplay masterfully written by his future partner Paz Alicia Garcíadiego, the launch of their storied collaboration. The pessimism, dark sexuality, black humor and the strange tenderness which the film shows to its misshapen characters would become important signatures of the Ripstein-Garcíadiego films.