Introduction
María Candelaria (Mexican: Xochimilco) is a 1943 Mexican film directed by Emilio Fernández. The movie won several accolades for the subject matter, direction, and acting. In 1946, it became graded as a classic in the history of Latin American cinema, when it felled down the linguistic and cultural barriers as the first Mexican film that ever won the Palme d’Or at The Cannes International Film Festival. The film can be simply categorized as a classical romantic-tragedy, but the qualities that truly made it famous were the expressions gender and cultural issues and the hauntingly beautiful cinematography of the film. Today, almost seventy years later, the film is still hailed as an iconic movie, and critics have declared it be amongst the top Mexican movies of all times (ranked at the 37th position). While the leading actors, Dolores del Rio, who played the title character, and Pedro Armendáriz, who played Lorenzo Rafael, were already well-known actors of their day, they are today known foremost by the characters they played in the movie. Fernández’ depiction of rural Mexico in María Candelaria (and later in his other movies such as Enamorada (1946), Rio Escondido (1947), and Pueblerina (1949) became typecast of every movie based in Mexico. The movie was also his first collaboration with internationally acclaimed Mexican cinematographer Gabriel Figueroa. The result was the elegant and somber visualizations of Mexican architecture and landscape in the movie, which have rendered a poetic background to it despite the melancholic subject matter. María Candelaria gained popularity in all countries with significant Spanish-speaking populations because it appealed the senses of the common man—the nationalistic identity of Spanish agriculturalist economies. His films highlighted the cultural issues faced by the latent indigenismo ideologies and other issues such as the plight of women in a gender-biased society; this paper discusses Fernández’ famous indigenista film, María Candelaria, which exemplifies this fact. The paper attempts to understand the director’s reflections and influences that eventually shaped the depiction of the indigenous Mexicans and the representation of women in Mexican cinema.
Background
María Candelaria was made in the initial stages of the Golden Age of Mexican Cinema (Elena and López 45). This era lasted from 1936 to 1956, and it was characterized by the intense popularity of Mexican cinema in the English-speaking countries such as the United States as well as other Spanish-speaking countries such as Spain and Argentina (Mora 75, 78). Moreover, in the World War II era, the United States felt the need to propound the significance of its policies in the non-democratic countries of the world, but most of the Spanish countries were not under the direct influence of the United States (Mora 75–80). Thus, the Mexican film industry was seen as having the potential to advocate the United States’ policies in the Spanish-speaking world, and thus, Hollywood aided the development of the Mexican film industry (Mora 75–80). The fact that a considerable amount of the Spanish talent had relocated to the United States after the Spanish Civil War also helped to advance the Golden Age of Mexican Cinema. Mexican director Fernández (1904–1986), or as he was popularly known as, “El Indio,” was one of the major proponents of this era. Contrarily, most Mexican movies made during the Golden Age dealt with cosmopolitan themes (Mora 75–80).
Meanwhile, from the mid-1930s onward, Mexico under President Lázaro Cárdenas began attaching the significance of its Aztec roots to Mexican culture (Noble 85) (Tierney 226) (Morris 192). Fernández was the son of a Mexican Kickapoo Indian woman from Coahuila and a military man who turned revolutionary after the 1990s (Mora 78) (Berg 147) (Tierney 225–226). His roots were perhaps the reason Fernandez was involved in the Mexican Revolution that lasted from 1910 to 1917. He had to live as an exile in the United States, where he developed his skills as a director (Noble 85). Once, the revolutionaries were pardoned, he returned to his country and began directing movies (Noble 85). The aggressive, high-strung persona associated with revolutionaries is known as the Mexican machismo, which is apparent in his film characters in María Candelaria (Noble 85). Thus, Fernández, with his focus on a Mexican identity that was influenced by indigenismo ideologies, seemed to promulgate the thought that Mexico’s true heritage lay in the culture that existed before the Spanish conquistadors captured the country in the fifteenth century. Moreover, he treated the identity related to the terms “Mexican” and “Indian” synonymously, as to him they represented an elementary and honorable, if idealistic notion of the circumstances that were found in the aftermath of the Mexican Revolution. Therefore, his movies assisted the economic zeal of integrating the modern Indian faction into conventional Mexican society, and in the Mexico under President Cárdenas, María Candelaria was the first movie that heralded Fernández’ career as a director.
The Storyline
María Candelaria is a melodramatic chronicle; it can be classified in terms of conventional celluloid classification as a romantic tragedy (Elena and López 46). The story begins by the creation of an air of nostalgia. A celebrated painter or El Pinfor (Alberto Galan) is shown working as several of his admirers flock around appreciating his work. One of these admirers is a reporter (Beatriz Ramos) who plans to write a story about this famous painter. The reporter is taken by a famous nude painting of a Mexican Indian woman, about which the painter has been very secretive. The reporter manages to coax the history of the painting from the painter and this forms the film’s story about the titular character of the movie, María Candelaria. María is an attractive young woman who lives in Xochimilco, a village in Mexico that is famed for its beautiful flower trees and floating gardens. The cinematography vividly shows the charm of these gardens. It captures the rustic allure of the way people live on elevated huts in the village and eke a living out of selling flowers to the areas around their village.
María is a beautiful village belle despised by other villagers because of the fact that her mother is a prostitute. The fact that she is a simple and chaste woman is not considered by the other villagers because they are considerably blinded by the fact that she is a daughter of a prostitute. In Lorenzo Rafael, she finds a person who loves and understands her. Their plan to get married is dependent on their sow laying a litter that they can sell to hold the wedding. However, the rest of the village seems bent on thwarting their plans to live a happy married life. The movie revolves around the tribulations of the couple as they attempt to attain happiness, but ends tragically. The movie is also idealistic in the fact that it portrays very clear definitions of good and evil. María and Lorenzo are shown as the good, simple, and pure-minded villagers, and the village people such as María’s ardent admirer Don Damian (Miguel Inclan) and Lorenzo’s former girlfriend (Lupe Inclán) are shown as villains who are obsessed with their own jealousies and prejudices. Similarly, the village priest (Rafael Icardo) is shown as a good man who has clarity of vision.
Themes in the Movie
The film intends to convey a number of messages. The cinematography, with its unique style that makes almost every scenes look like a painting, aims to show the viewer that Mexico is a country of exquisite beauty. Some other scenes that are worth mentioning because of their cinematic appeal are as follows: When María contracts malaria and becomes delirious with fever the entire hut is shown to be lighted by the light if a fire, and thus, the central segment of the frames are suffused in a gleaming yellow glow, while the external segments of the frames remain in darkness. Similarly, as Lorenzo rides down the river in the rain and by the light of the moon to steal quinine for María, the gorgeous beauty of the surroundings further emphasizes the feeling of suspense in the scene. The film also intends to recall the beauty of the Aztec origins of Mexico, as it shows María’s face in a manner similar to that in the statues of women from the Aztec era (Wroughton 85).
María Candelaria highlights that the consequences of obsessing over artistic expression. In attempting to render an everlasting quality to beauty, an artist can often become the cause behind untoward incidents. In the movie, the painter only desired to conserve the magnificence of the pure native Mexican peoples, perhaps with the foresight that it could soon vanish forever. As most of the Mexican populace is comprised of people with a mixed heritage of Spanish and indigenous Mexican Indians, awareness of one’s race and genetic background is an essential part of an average Mexican’s life. However, irrespective of the nobility of his intentions, the painter, blinded by his aspiration, forged a nude picture of a pure Mexican indigenous woman using María’s face for inspiration. This reaffirmed the community’s blind and biased belief that she was an unchaste woman who intended to defile the sanctity of the Catholic community, and inadvertently brought about her tragic ending. The fact that the film intends to convey the message that morality is more important than artistic endeavors is suggested in the painter’s opening statement when he begins narrating his tale: “Life uses us as if we are instruments that can cause pain. It is a known fact that painters like me constantly seek the manifestation of our dreams and inner thoughts. However, few actually find what they seek. I, on the other hand, had the privilege of finding the manifestation of my perception of beauty, but it would have been far better if I never had.” Thus, while the movie focuses on highlighting the indigenous beauty of Mexico, it also warns against “immoral” means to preserve it. It is also possible that while the film, with its characteristically Mexican impression and sensitivities attracts the viewer’s attention and sensibilities with the magnificence of Mexico’s cultural heritage, it also laments the backward thoughts associated with the cultural beauty.
This film encourages the viewer to experience the purity and nobility of María and Lorenzo’s love and the despair of their tragic separation at the hands of a biased society. María is thus the picture of virtue, the Mexican representation of good in contrast to the assertive, loud, and unchaste woman, that the villagers associate her with because of her roots. She represents La Virgen de Guadalupe, the pure, virgin. However, unlike the Guadalupean theme, which shows the virtuous woman being loved and appreciated by all, María is subjected to the hatred of her society. This hatred and the mention of her prostitute mother is thus a reference to La Malinche or the disloyal woman. In Mexico, La Virgen de Guadalupe represents the supernatural, spiritual mother, while La Malinche represents the unforgivable mother who gave life physically, but spiritually betrayed her land (Berg 57–58). Thus, the female nature is symbolized in two colors, black and sinful as La Malinche and white and pure as La Virgen de Guadalupe. There is no place for grey in this color pattern. In María Candelaria, these two conflicting and coexisting characteristics of Mexican women are shown by the true nature of María and the perception of her nature by her community. However, it does not show the presence of La Malinche and La Virgen de Guadalupe characteristics in one woman; a woman is either La Malinche or La Virgen de Guadalupe (Noble: If Looks Could Kill: Image Wars in María Candelaria 79). Nevertheless, the movie highlights the representation of women in Mexican art and deplores the lack of understanding of human nature by the Mexican populace that results in María’s tragic ending.
In María Candelaria, the indigenous theme is interspersed with the theme of feminism, as the leading actor of the movie is a woman who is a subject of gaze (Wroughton 85). In a marginalized community of Mexican Indians, María was even further excluded because of the community’s inability to deal with the idea of a “sexed” woman (Olcott and Vaughan 92). It is possible that Fernández intended to isolate the women in the Mexican Indian community. He might have intended to show the association of a Mexican Indian woman with a Spanish man is a negative light, that is, as La Malinche. From the movie’s point of view, indigenous women should preserve their cultural origins (Olcott and Vaughan 92). The movie also questions the indigenismo sentiments of the Mexican Indians when the community favors La Virgen de Guadalupe over La Malinche, buts displays barbaric behavior by stoning a woman to death (Olcott and Vaughan 92). Moreover, María’s beauty that opens the door of several opportunities for her is also the cause of several of her problems (Olcott and Vaughan 94). She has several suitors, a priest’s sympathy, and even a painter desiring to paint her portrait, but her community continues to believe that she uses her beauty for her advantage in an unchaste manner. They continue to believe that she probably inherited the beauty and the sins of her mother. Finally, her end is a dramatic depiction of women’s circumstances, and by emphasizing on her goodness, the film symbolizes the absurdity of sacrifice demanded by the society to avenge the sins of her mother (Elena and López 46). Berg (107) has noted that “Machismo is the name of the mutual agreement between the patriarchal state and individual male in Mexico.” Such machismo is shown in the movie by Lorenzo—when he finds out the painter’s fascination with his girlfriend’s beauty—by Don Damian (Miguel Inclán)—when María refuses to respond to his interest in her—and by the mob that chases María to her death. It is also important to note that the innocence and dignity of the Mexican Indians and that of María’s is related by a “cultivated” white man, the painter (Elena and López 45). This is perhaps Fernández’ way of showing the paternalistic attitude adopted by the west—especially the United States—toward Mexico. It can also be seen that Fernández himself has a paternalistic attitude toward the Mexican Indians and the indigenous populace of Mexico as he attempts to portray the need of maintaining the purity of the indigenous people in María Candelaria. This has been discussed earlier in this paper. The paternalistic attitude is also evident in the treatment of women. Female sexuality is seen as an important aspect that defines the place of a woman in the society, and in María Candelaria, it seems as if the entire society has taken the responsibility of maintaining female chastity within the community.
The use of language in the film is also interesting. Nahuátl, which is the original language of the Mexican Indians, is spoken at two instances in the movie (Olcott and Vaughan 93). In both the instances, Nahuátl is used instinctively by characters in the movie. In the first instance, María is enraged when her statue of La Virgen de Guadalupe is vandalized by Lupe, who also desires Lorenzo’s attention (Olcott and Vaughan 93). As she chases Lupe, the latter retorts in anger in Nahuátl (Olcott and Vaughan 93). Similarly, Nahuátl is also used when Lorenzo is frustrated and suspicious with the realization that the painter sees María’s beauty (Olcott and Vaughan 93). In contrast to Spanish, which is used while conversing with others after mental deliberation, Nahuátl is spoken without any deliberation and in a rage. María is also shown to demonstrate characteristically indigenous behavior in the movie by displaying an attachment to her land and her animals (Olcott and Vaughan 92–93). This is shown when she refuses to leave her land to settle elsewhere at her fiancé’s bidding and when she nurtures her hogs.
Conclusion
When the painter sates in the movie that “Something about María Candelaria’s chronicle is painfully appalling and at the same time, touchingly sweet,” he very appropriately summarizes the true emotions the viewers’ experience at the end of the movie. María Candelaria is the saga of a Mexico that is aware of its true origins. The film can be defined as a romantic tragedy (in conventional terms) that intends to highlight issues such as artistic endeavor verses morality, gender representation in art, indigenousness, and La Malinche and La Virgen de Guadalupe in Mexican society. A great commercial and critical success of its day, the film remains a favorite among critics several years after its creation. In this paper, the film was discussed and various issues represented in it that were or even are extant in the Mexican society were the point of focus.
Works Cited
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Noble, Andrea. “If Looks Could Kill: Image Wars in María Candelaria.” Screen 42.1 (2001): 77–91. Print.
Olcott, Jocelyn, Vaughan, Mary K., and Cano, Gabriela. Sex in Revolution: Gender, Politics, and Power in Modern Mexico. Durham: Duke University Press, 2006. Print.
Tierney, Dolores. “Gender Relations and Mexican Cultural Nationalism in Emilio Fernández’s Enamorada/Woman in Loveby.” Quarterly Review of Film and Video 20 (2003): 225–236. Print.
Wroughton, John. The Routledge Companion to the Stuart Age, 1603–1714. New Jersey: Routledge, 2006. Print.
