flor silvestre, perdida, madre, Dios - Las Mujeres mexicanas

Mexico. Violent drug cartels. Kidnapping. Illegal immigrants in the USA. Tequilla. Sombreros. American hedonistic vacation place. Frida, La Bamba.

It is easy to dismiss a country and its people based on American western films or other media which portray a place as a kind of desert with a lot of despair. It is easy not to think that there is a history and other kinds of lives - it is a place far away.

The Embassy of Mexico in Guyana had its sixth Movie week this week. These are films we would not ordinarily see.

I am sorry I missed the first film - John Steinbeck's The Pearl which we had done in school for Literature.



I saw  Flor Silvestre, Pueblerina  and Las Abandonadas.  The films were all black and white.  The cinematography was beautiful - a commentary somewhere said that the cinematographers had to focus on details due to the absence of colours.

Flor Silvestre - complex story of landowner son who falls in love with a poor girl - her grandfathers 'Wild flower'. The story tells the complexity of revolution and wars when sometimes, it is not easy to choose sides because of all the interconnections. The story is around the land - and it would appear to appeal to some nationalistic sentiment about 'La Terra'.  It also seems to about the story of Mexico after the revolution according to some critics who thought the acting was poor.

There was deep attachment to Mother Earth (la terra) and I kept thinking of Mother India, the Indian classic which was made soon after Indian independence and which apparently tried to show the poor parts of India and to create nationalistic sentiments after the brutal partition.

Puebleirina was low budget. It was my favourite. The camera shots were beautiful. I saw on another commentary that the absence of colour meant that there was attention to details. But details which include the planting and harvesting of corn.
The morals are interesting in this film. Paloma is raped and bears a son. Her community tries to support her. There is no justice really as the rapist is a rich man. Her boyfriend spends six years in jail and tries to come back to make peace. The woman says she does not want pity. He calls her pure. He tells her to keep her head high.

Las Abandonadas - a woman is fooled by a bigamist. She has a son. Her father calls her 'perdida' - a 'tramp'. She becomes a prostitute. The hero of the film falls in love with her and wants to marry her. He is a 'fake General' who is a thief and murderer. (Were there any political satire here to the army people). Our hero though, tells Margot again.. hold your head high. Do not be ashamed.
Margot goes to jail. She tells her son that she is dead. She returns to prostitution and steals to get money to send her son to school. This is no virtuous Esperanza of Flor Silvestre.

Her son becomes a lawyer who in his first case describes a woman who killed her rapist.. he says that 'el madre es Dios(almost)" the Mother is God'!!! and again.. a very very common theme in Indian films of the olden days where long suffering mothers made lots of sacrifices and tears for their sons.  This film reminded me of Madam X.

God.. was always there. Some striking images though where Paloma kneels in the church to one side away from the congregation. There is the youngster shaking the collection plate to get the money from the rapist landowner.

Comedy is there through out, funny moments.. in the strangest places. The music is there - and while not Bollywood, it is interesting how the music is incorporated and we get glimpses of different kinds of dancing including White Kitty's Can Can.

I had Llorona in my mind . The women in the films suffered one way or another. a woman who survived rape, the woman who lost her son. But happiness is found in short lived moments and perhaps this was the Mexico of the time. surviving the 'Revolution'.   It was good to see these other representations of  Mexico.