María Candelaria (1943)

Director: Emilio Fernandez
Country: Mexico

Written and directed by Emilio Fernandez, the story revolves around Maria Candelaria (performed by the gorgeous Dolores del Rio) a beautiful indigenous woman and her relationship with Lorenzo Rafael (Pedro Armendariz) whose story is told by a misterious painter. The action takes place in 1909 in an empoverished and underdeveloped but beautiful village of Xochimilco. 

For some reason the villagers hate Maria Candelaria, whose mother's life is never revealed, was she a prostitute or a witch? the only thing we know is that she was killed for being a "sinner". This film could be considereded a social one despite its love story, because we can see the division between white Mexicans and the indigenous, with the former ones being medical doctors, priests, artists and bureaucrats, and the latter ones being oppressed by the system and the Catholic Church, which in combination with the indigenous superstitions and the close-minded life style they have, the results are catastrophic such as the rejection of medical care, law enforcement or artistic disciplines, and characters such as "la chismosa", "la huesera" or the ruthless "patrón" are excellent examples of it. 

The film also has many dark humor and satiric dialogues that give balance and help to keep the pace, the cinematography by the legendary Gabriel Figueroa (Los Olvidados, Macario, The Fugitive, Animas Trujano, etc) is stunning and one of the best in Figueroa's career, with a masterful use of natural light, shadows and a perfect framing we can see how beautiful Xochimilco was at the time, and the performances of Dolores del Rio and Pedro Armendariz are very accurate, because portraying indigeous characters was not an easy task for sure, there was the risk of being ridiculous or fake, but they changed their accents and manners so well and the result was succesful. 

Definitely a must-see in the Golden Age of the Mexican Cinema and one of the key films of Emilio "El Indio" Fernandez.