CINE DE ORO: TREASURES OF MEXICAN CINEMA’S GOLDEN AGE

Geopolitical circumstances aligned in the early 1930s to set the scene for a period of Mexican cinema known as its “Golden Age” that lasted until the early 1960s. New studios were set up and their production subsidised from the mid-1930s by the government of President Lázaro Cárdenas. With a sharp drop in films coming from Spain due to the Civil War, a space was opened up for local Mexican production. By 1951, Mexico City was the cinematic capital of Latin America, with 58 soundstages across six studios and a star system to rival Hollywood’s. The state-backed industry established by Cárdenas aimed to establish a specific Mexican cinematic aesthetic and sensibility, exemplified by the films of director, writer and actor Emilio Fernández, who once claimed “there exists only one Mexico… the one that I invented”. Together with famed cinematographer Gabriel Figueroa, Fernández forged a new cinematic style focused on a rural, traditional, often Indigenous national identity. Fernández and Figueroa’s films of the 1940s and early 1950s present a cohesive cinematic universe made up of human figures dwarfed by epic skies and landscapes littered with cacti, churches and religious statues. Films such as María Candelaria (1943), Enamorada (1946) and The Pearl (1947) gave the Mexican film industry global recognition and prestige, with the first co-winning the major award at the 1946 Cannes Film Festival. The inevitable decline started with the rise of television, common in Mexican homes by 1956, and a shifting global film industry, but the films of this era provide testimony to the richness and stylistic and generic adventurousness of this classical era of Mexican cinema exemplified by such varied films as El fantasmo del convento (1934), Enamorada, Victims of Sin (1951) and Macario (1960).

Wednesday 3 September

7:00pm ENAMORADA

Emilio Fernández (1946) 99 mins – Unclassified 15+

Loosely based on Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew, this was the first of several important collaborations between key classical era director Fernández and the extraordinary María Félix. Set at the time of the Mexican Revolution, it follows the star-crossed romance between a revolutionary general (Pedro Armendáriz) and the wild and impulsive daughter (Félix) of one of a recently seized town’s most wealthy men. Beautifully shot by famed cinematographer Gabriel Figueroa (Buñuel’s Los olvidados and Ford’s The Fugitive), it dexterously combines the tropes of heightened melodrama, romantic comedy and fantastical Sternbergian reverie.

Courtesy of Filmoteca Unam’s Collection.

9:00pm MARÍA CANDELARIA

Emilio Fernández (1944) 103 mins – Unclassified 15+

As an authentic Latino voice in 1940s and 1950s Mexican cinema, Fernández incorporated many elements of Indigenous culture into his films. He commonly paid close attention to the privations and struggles of Indigenous communities, setting this drama amongst the floating gardens in the waterways of Xochimilco – evocatively shot by Gabriel Figueroa – on the outskirts of Mexico City. Hollywood star Dolores del Río plays a peasant flower seller in a tragic tale of two lovers entrapped by debt and hemmed in by traditional values. With Pedro Armendáriz.

Courtesy of Filmoteca Unam’s Collection.

Wednesday 10 September

7:00pm VICTIMS OF SIN

Emilio Fernández (1951) 90 mins – Unclassified 15+

Powerhouse Cuban star Ninón Sevilla brings a magnificent combination of ferocity and tenderness to her portrayal of nightclub performer Violeta. This foremost example of the famed cabaretera subgenre brings together noir, the musical and melodrama with a dynamic screenplay and, once more, vivid cinematography by Gabriel Figueroa. Fernández brings a spectacular intensity and compassion to his films, supported by the careful work of Gloria Schoemann, one of the industry’s most accomplished editors. With Tito Junco and Rita Montaner.

8:45pm EL FANTASMA DEL CONVENTO

Fernando de Fuentes (1934) 85 mins – Unclassified 15+

Praised for its striking imagery and unnerving use of sound design, Fuentes’ haunted monastery tale has been widely lauded as one of the first great Mexican horror films. Fast-tracked into production to capitalise on the success of a horror film co-scripted by Fuentes, 1933’s cult classic La Llorona, it was heavily inspired by the mummified bodies found in Museo de El Carmen, a former convent in Mexico City, resulting in a hauntingly dreamlike film that delves into the morbid and scandalous aspects of Catholicism, guilt, sin and dark desires.

Wednesday 17 September

7:00pm MACARIO

Roberto Gavaldón (1960) 91 mins – Unclassified 15+

Based on “The Third Guest”, a story – itself an adaptation of the Brothers Grimm tale “Godfather Death” – by the elusive author of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, B. Traven, Gavaldón’s supernatural drama finds an impoverished man (Ignacio López Tarso) and his wife (Pina Pellicer, most well-known outside Mexico for starring in Brando’s One-Eyed Jacks) seemingly tested by the figures of the Devil, God and Death themselves. Set on the eve of the Day of the Dead, and lensed by legendary cinematographer Gabriel Figueroa, it has gone on to be acclaimed as one of the greatest Mexican films.

Courtesy of Filmoteca Unam’s Collection.

8:45pm TWO MONKS

Juan Bustillo Oro (1934) 79 mins – Unclassified 15+

With visually arresting cinematography by Agustín Jiménez, openly displaying the influence of German Expressionism with its dramatic lighting, careful use of shadows and intense close-ups, this was also the first Mexican film to use a crane for high-angle shots. Described by Charles Ramírez Berg as an “existential mystery”, its highly original use of multiple flashbacks of the same event preceded Kurosawa’s Rashomon by 16 years. Praised by critics, the experimental style proved too much for contemporary audiences and it was a box-office failure. Rediscovered in the 1970s, it is now credited with creating the “Mexican Gothic” genre.

Courtesy of Filmoteca Unam’s Collection.