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María Candelaria
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María Candelaria
María Candelaria is a 1944 Mexican melodrama film written and directed by Emilio Fernández and starring Dolores del Río and Pedro Armendáriz. It was the first Mexican film to be screened at the Cannes International Film Festival where it won the Grand Prix (now known as the Palme d'Or) becoming the first Latin American film to do so. María Candelaria would later win a Silver Ariel award for Best Cinematography.
The film came to be regarded as one of Fernández's best works, in which he portrays the indigenous people of Mexico with innocence and dignity. Fernández has said that he wrote an original version of the plot on 13 napkins while sitting in a restaurant. He was anxious because he was dating Dolores del Río and could not afford to buy her a birthday present. The film was originally titled Xochimilco and the protagonist was named María del Refugio.
Major themes in the film include melodrama, indigenousness, nationalism, and the beauty of Mexico. María Candelaria is one of Mexico's most beloved films of all time, and it was ranked thirty-seventh among the top 100 films of Mexican cinema.
A young journalist presses an old artist to display the portrait of a naked indigenous woman that he has in his study. As the artist begins to tell the story behind the painting, the action becomes a flashback to Xochimilco, Mexico in 1909, right before the Mexican Revolution. Xochimilco is an area with beautiful landscapes inhabited mostly by indigenous people.
The woman in the painting is María Candelaria (Dolores del Río), a young indigenous woman shunned by her own people for being the daughter of a prostitute. She and her lover, Lorenzo Rafael, face constant exclusion and threats. They receive criticism and condemnation from the townspeople. They are honest and hardworking, yet nothing ever goes right for them. Don Damián, a jealous Mestizo store owner who wants María for himself, prevents María and Lorenzo from getting married and pursues Maria over a minor debt. Maria owes Don money for goods. She tries to sell him her flowers and Lorenzo tries to sell him vegetables but he refuses to take them. Instead, he kills a piglet that María and Lorenzo planned to raise and sell for profit so that they would have enough money to get married. When María contracts malaria, Don Damián refuses to give the couple the quinine necessary to fight the disease. Lorenzo breaks into the store to steal the medicine and takes a wedding dress for María. Lorenzo goes to prison for stealing and María agrees to model for the painter to pay for his release. The artist begins painting her portrait and then asks her to pose nude, which she refuses to do.
The artist finishes the painting with the nude body of another woman. When the people of Xochimilco see the painting, they assume it is María Candelaria. They think that she turned out just like her mother so they stone her to death, and burn her house, while Lorenzo watches helplessly.
Finally, Lorenzo escapes from prison to carry María's lifeless body through Xochimilco's Canal of the Dead.
Similarly, the portrayal of prejudiced villagers - primarily shrill and bullying women - is not particularly subtle, though the interactions with the priest reveal a more complex and fluctuating negotiation between narrowminded superstition and (in this context) a relatively enlightened form of Christianity. The village women's malevolent temperament (all scowlers giving the evil eye) is contrasted with María Candelaria's 'innocent' beauty - "the essence of authentic Mexican beauty," according to the painter (Alberto Galán), who is also crucial in the tragedy that unfolds.
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María Candelaria
María Candelaria is a 1944 Mexican melodrama film written and directed by Emilio Fernández and starring Dolores del Río and Pedro Armendáriz. It was the first Mexican film to be screened at the Cannes International Film Festival where it won the Grand Prix (now known as the Palme d'Or) becoming the first Latin American film to do so. María Candelaria would later win a Silver Ariel award for Best Cinematography.
The film came to be regarded as one of Fernández's best works, in which he portrays the indigenous people of Mexico with innocence and dignity. Fernández has said that he wrote an original version of the plot on 13 napkins while sitting in a restaurant. He was anxious because he was dating Dolores del Río and could not afford to buy her a birthday present. The film was originally titled Xochimilco and the protagonist was named María del Refugio.
Major themes in the film include melodrama, indigenousness, nationalism, and the beauty of Mexico. María Candelaria is one of Mexico's most beloved films of all time, and it was ranked thirty-seventh among the top 100 films of Mexican cinema.
A young journalist presses an old artist to display the portrait of a naked indigenous woman that he has in his study. As the artist begins to tell the story behind the painting, the action becomes a flashback to Xochimilco, Mexico in 1909, right before the Mexican Revolution. Xochimilco is an area with beautiful landscapes inhabited mostly by indigenous people.
The woman in the painting is María Candelaria (Dolores del Río), a young indigenous woman shunned by her own people for being the daughter of a prostitute. She and her lover, Lorenzo Rafael, face constant exclusion and threats. They receive criticism and condemnation from the townspeople. They are honest and hardworking, yet nothing ever goes right for them. Don Damián, a jealous Mestizo store owner who wants María for himself, prevents María and Lorenzo from getting married and pursues Maria over a minor debt. Maria owes Don money for goods. She tries to sell him her flowers and Lorenzo tries to sell him vegetables but he refuses to take them. Instead, he kills a piglet that María and Lorenzo planned to raise and sell for profit so that they would have enough money to get married. When María contracts malaria, Don Damián refuses to give the couple the quinine necessary to fight the disease. Lorenzo breaks into the store to steal the medicine and takes a wedding dress for María. Lorenzo goes to prison for stealing and María agrees to model for the painter to pay for his release. The artist begins painting her portrait and then asks her to pose nude, which she refuses to do.
The artist finishes the painting with the nude body of another woman. When the people of Xochimilco see the painting, they assume it is María Candelaria. They think that she turned out just like her mother so they stone her to death, and burn her house, while Lorenzo watches helplessly.
Finally, Lorenzo escapes from prison to carry María's lifeless body through Xochimilco's Canal of the Dead.
Similarly, the portrayal of prejudiced villagers - primarily shrill and bullying women - is not particularly subtle, though the interactions with the priest reveal a more complex and fluctuating negotiation between narrowminded superstition and (in this context) a relatively enlightened form of Christianity. The village women's malevolent temperament (all scowlers giving the evil eye) is contrasted with María Candelaria's 'innocent' beauty - "the essence of authentic Mexican beauty," according to the painter (Alberto Galán), who is also crucial in the tragedy that unfolds.