Yesterday I was introduced to a new little corner of the cinema universe that I didn't know existed: the Rumberas film genre. Once again, thank you to the Criterion Channel. The Rumberas have joined Japanese film noir, Czech New Wave, etc. - it's just too bad that it happened too late for me to create class based on it. I watched Alberto Gout's Aventurera, which was a joyous mess of a film. The Rumberas films are a crazy mashup of film noir, extreme melodrama, and a Busby Berkley musical, all while somehow casting a light on the disenfranchised of society. The lead character is usually a woman who has been done wrong by society or evil men, and how she gains revenge or redemption, while including fix or six high energy Afro-Caribbean dance numbers. Amazing. Aventurera starred Ninon Sevilla, the star of the Rumberas films (she usually also choreographed her own dance numbers), as Elena Tejero, a good girl who survives her mother's infidelity, her father's suicide. life on the streets, an extremely evil step-mother (Andrew Palma) and thug (the great Tito Junco, playing El Guapo) who is blackmailing her, etc., to marry a respectable lawyer, who she tries to destroy as part of her revenge plan - and yet it somehow has a happy ending (except for the devoted Rengo, played by Miguel Inclan). The power of dance (it's all sort of a much better Bollywood film). It also legendary singers Pedro Vargas and Ana Maria Gonzalez as themselves. Definitely recommended.
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