By Julie Etra

When I stumbled upon this film, directed by the Russian filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein in the early 1930s and never completed, I was immediately engaged. Finally released in its unfinished form in 1978, it takes place in four geographic regions of Mexico not long after the Mexican Revolution, during the height of the Mexican muralists, and just prior to the golden age of Mexican cinema. It is narrated in Russian, with subtitles in English, by co-Director Grigory Alexandrov. During this epoch many intellectuals and artists associated with the European avant-garde movement were fascinated by Latin American culture, particularly Mexico, which they considered the embodiment of Surrealism.

The history of its conception, development, production, and resurrection is as interesting as the film. In 1929, a group of Soviet filmmakers headed by Eisenstein were invited to Hollywood to learn modern techniques of sound cinema and to produce a movie for Paramount Pictures. Eisenstein was well known and respected from his previous works, most famously Battleship Potemkin. Unable to reach an agreement with the Hollywood moguls, the American socialist and author Upton Sinclair and other well-connected intellectuals and artists in the United States, including the Mexican artists Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros, and José Clemente Orozco, suggested locating to Mexico. They envisioned an episodic portrayal of Mexican culture and politics from pre-Conquest civilization to the Mexican Revolution. In preparation for the six months of filming, the filmmakers spent two months of often arduous travel led by Rivera, Siqueiros, and Orozco, experiencing landscapes that would otherwise have been out of reach or not considered. Following production the film was returned to Hollywood where it languished until 1955 when Upton Sinclair donated the negative to the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

The film starts with a Prologue that attempts to connect pre-Hispanic Mexico with the then contemporary version. Stark images and profiles of men and women mirroring the gods and sculptures of the great temples, imply the persistence of the indigenous culture, soul, and physical appearance despite the conquest, with death an ever-present theme.

The first vignette, Sandunga, takes place in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, the area famous for its winds and the modern wind farm La Ventosa. The vignette opens with a bucolic, idyllic, and romanticized landscape, with the coconut palm trees swaying in the breeze. The story revolves around a young woman named Concepción who yearns for gold jewelry in the form of coins, joined in a necklace, as a symbol of status and coming of age. The plot, as it were, leads up to her wedding. Footage includes various scenes of women working in the markets, the fields, and over comals; for the most part men are absent, at least for the work, although all the musicians in the wedding party are men. The party scenes are rich with cultural details such as toddlers and baby goats under the feet of the partying dancers. It culminates with the wedding. It ends with the following subtitle ‘That’s how the unhurried semi-vegetable life goes on in this tropical part of Mexico’, with the palm fronds bending in the wind, the husband in the hammock, and Concepción handing him the baby boy. La Sandunga or Zandunga is a Mexican waltz and the regional anthem of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. This song is covered by numerous vocalists; my favorite version is by Lila Downs.

The second vignette shows the splendid Festival of the Virgin of Guadalupe. Catholic Church luminaries oversee the reenactment of the Passion of Christ and the procession of the penitents crawling up the stairs to the church, which was most likely built on a pyramid, and lots of depictions of death. The festival continues with pre-Hispanic costumes including masks and feathers, with music and dancing that lasted unabated for 24 hours, highlighting pre-conquest culture. There are zero women in this footage. It ends with a weird transition to a bullfight featuring the famous bullfighter David Liceaga. The questionable connection to the festival is the bullfighters’ prayers to the Virgin prior to the spectacle of the bullfight. As part of this same vignette, we then see couples and families enjoying the trajineras of Xochimilco, the flat-bottomed boats that traverse the shallow water of the former lake, featuring Liceaga accompanied with women serenading and fawning over him.

Most troubling, to me, is the third vignette which takes place prior to the Revolution and during the Dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz on a large hacienda in the state of Hidalgo, it depicts the stark disparity between the ruling class and the working peons (agrarian reform was central to the Revolution). It takes place on a Maguey (Agave) plantation, Tetlapayac, where the milky liquid pulque is extracted from the plant and then fermented to produce pulque.

It is hard, endless work for the pulqueros. Maria, betrothed to pulquero Sebastian, is raped by a drunk guest at the hacienda during a welcoming party for the returning daughter of the patron, and as Sebastian tries to escort her, he is roughed up and kicked out while she is locked up, with a guard at the door. Sebastian, with his coconspirators, attempts to free Maria. On foot and armed with stolen weapons, they are hunted down by an armed and well-mounted posse into the rough landscape. During the commotion the daughter of the patron is fatally shot. Sebastian and his two friends meet a tortured, bloody end while the surviving coconspirator watches and Maria is freed only to discover her dead fiancé. The filming, by cinematographer Eduard Tisse, the juxtapositions, shadows and contrasts, are exquisite.

In the Epilogue, Alexandrov explains that the last novella, Soldadera (soldier), about the Revolution, was never completed as the filmmakers ran out of money and returned home. The Soldaderas were the wives of the soldiers; they accompanied the army and supported the men in various capacities.

It ends with Day of the Dead celebrations, at first in the cemetery, with death everywhere, symbolized by an abundance of skulls, a recurring theme that connects the vignettes. ‘The day begins with laments for the dead’ and continues with feasting at the cemetery. The last scene is a bustling carnival with dancers and performers in death masks dancing the Mexican Hat Dance, surrounded by their masked audience. When the audience removes their masks, we see the faces of Mexico: children.