And now I've gone down the Rumberas films rabbit hole, having just finished Emilio Fernandez's 1951 Victims of Sin. This one once again starred Ninon Sevilla as Violeta, who is once again treated roughly by men and society. although she's a much kinder character than she was in Aventurera. Tito Junco also stars, although he's a much more noble character (Santriago) than he played in the previous film. The true villain is Rodolfo (played by Rodolfo Acosta), who is utterly wicked, including pimping a lot of women, telling one woman to dump their baby in a trash can (Violete finds it and adopts him), beating Violeta up, and killing Santiago. In the end, Violeta gets her revenge by jumping in through a window a blowing Rodolfo away. This one features crime, prostitution, prison, domestic abuse, slapping children around, murder, etc. - thank God for the dance numbers to save the day. It's also beautifully filmed, it sort of looks like one of those Marcel Carne poetic realism films. It's amazing to think of how real/lurid these films are, as compared to how vanilla American films would have been in 1950 (even the hardest edge 1950 American film noir would seem vanilla by comparison). I think this was a much better film than Aventurera, and it's definitely recommended.
No comments:
Post a Comment