World Melodrama Film Series Presents: María Candelaria (1944)

There are things that bleed if you so much as touch them.

This week we turn from Marlene Dietrich’s horsey Russian empress to arguably the most iconic example of Mexican melodrama’s suffering woman figure, Dolores del Rio’s titular role as the virginal Indian in María Candelaria. Set in and around the Xochimilco borough of Mexico City, Emilio “El Indio” Fernández’s film idealizes the indigenous populations of Mexico even as it tracks out with fateful implacability their tragic encounters with the prejudices and injustices meted out to them by whites and mestizos alike. In this film the lion’s share of injustice, prejudice, and tragedy befall María Candelaria, the pure but nevertheless reviled daughter of a prostitute, and her beau, Lorenzo Rafael (Pedro Armendáriz). Shot by one of the greatest cinematographers of the twentieth century, Gabriel Figueroa, María Candelaria is not to be missed.

Tuesday, April 12th
Stevenson 150, 8 PM

For the remainder of the quarter, we will be showing melodramas from different countries each week. Same time, same place. All are welcome. Tell your family, invite your friends.