Mexican Melodrama weekend

In the land of melodrama, Mexico is king. Improbable destinies fuelled by twists and turns that would make even the most daring showrunners green with envy. Soap opera plots with morbid overtones. And colourful portraits of women. Elusive. Not just victims. Not just femmes fatales. Indomitable, virile, dare we say, in the way they check out the macho. Roles made for stars such as María Félix, known as La Doña, the sultry Latin Ava Gardner; Dolores del Río, a veritable icon who left her mark on both Mexican and Hollywood cinema; not forgetting Ninón Sevilla, the blonde Cuban who made all rumba dancers mambo.

In four films, we take you on a journey through this particular genre, where death and love have never gone so well together. Under the direction of the masters of the genre (Roberto Gavaldón, Alberto Gout and Emilio Fernández), María Félix (Enamorada), Dolores del Río (Double destiny), Ninón Sevilla (The Adventuress) and Pina Pellicer (Days of Autumn), a shooting star whose fragile grace contrasts with the explosive character of her three colleagues. Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy ride. Spicy melodrama this weekend.

Programming : 

Double destinée
(La otra)
Roberto Gavaldón

1946. Mexique. 98 min. N&b. DCP. VOSTF.

An impressive piece of cinematography (by Alex Phillips) for a most disturbing exchange of personalities. María, a poor manicurist, murders her twin, Magdalena, a rich widow, and fakes her own suicide. She then takes Magdalena's place and, in the process, discovers that Magdalena, with the help of her lover, has murdered her husband. Melodrama is definitely not the preserve of a certain type of American cinema, especially when it comes to noir. The proof is in this astonishing Double Destiny, literally brought to life by Dolores del Río, an icon of Mexican cinema in the 1940s and 1950s.

> Saturday 25 January at 2pm

Jours d’automne
(Días de otoño)
Roberto Gavaldón

1962. Mexique. 95 min. N&b. DCP. VOSTF.

A young woman from the countryside who has recently arrived in Mexico City and who whips up whipped cream as fast as she invents fantasies. She claims to be getting married and having a child, but the case is more complex, and you have to know how to save face at all times. Mythomania? Schizophrenia? It doesn't matter, because this is a magnificent, almost neo-realist melodrama that begins as a romantic comedy before turning into a thriller with Hitchcockian overtones. A perfect success, enhanced by Gabriel Figueroa's sumptuous photography and the divine presence of Pina Pellicer.

> Saturday 25 January at 4pm

L’Aventurière
(Aventurera)
Alberto Gout

1949. Mexique. 102 min. N&b. DCP. VOSTF.

Elena spent the first eighteen years of her life living happily with her parents in Chihuahua, where she studied dance, until the day she came home from school to find that her mother had run off with a family friend and that her father had committed suicide. That's just the first five minutes, then it's all twists and turns, full of manipulations in love, improbable traps and sordid betrayals. A fast-paced melodrama, with musical numbers by actress Ninón Sevilla, a direct competitor of Dolores del Río and María Félix.

> Sunday 26 January at 2pm

Enamorada
Emilio Fernández

1946. Mexique. 99 min. N&b. DCP. VOSTF.

A melodrama gripped by a mad desire for emancipation. An adaptation of William Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew by Emilio Fernández, the leading director of Mexican melodrama. Set against the backdrop of the Mexican Revolution, this is the stormy tale of a romance between a generous but macho Mexican general and the daughter of a wealthy aristocrat with a strong character. Serenades and epic poems, Gabriel Figueroa's sumptuous lighting, Fernández's precise and lyrical direction and, of course, the elegant and irresistible María Félix, who would go on to become a legend of Mexican cinema.

> Sunday 26 January at 4pm

All the practical information : La Cinémathèque de Toulouse