Rosa blanca

Based upon the Bruno Traven novel. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Excellent, cynical, but deeply moving, anti-capitalist film dealing with corruption in 1930's Mexico, although the setting could easily be the US or anywhere else.

A dedicated landowner who loves his land and feels a sense of responsibility towards his workers refuses to sell his land to an oil company. However, when you have money, you make the rules and the law. What are the lives of the workers and land anyway to the wealthy elites who feel the "number games" and their superficial extracurricular sexual escapades are more important? One of the most spectacular scenes, you'll ever witness in a film depicting the absolute destruction of a land and eco-system by oil drilling. Your heart will bleed. It will bleed so much, you'll forget the ridiculous tacked on ending the film was given to pass the Mexican film censors, which depicts the nationalization of the oil industry and the workers and government coming together to create a new democratic Mexico of the people for the people. Obviously justice can never be achieved in the present, because neither the family nor the land can ever be unspoiled; nor can it be achieved in the future as the ruling elite have not been disposed of power.

La Rosa Blanca, based on the novel by B. Traven, belongs to a long list of Mexican movie titles that unfortunately and for different means were "enlatadas". In this case, Gerardo de la Torre, novelist and script writer, that presented the film a few years ago within a festival dedicated to forbidden movies, tells us that the real reasons behind the banning were not the usual political matters to which we are used in our country, but to the scenes that Christiane Martel, future wife of Miguelito Alemán, son of former president of México, did in the film. Nothing outrageous for our time, nevertheless, owner of delightful breasts, she pours herself in a seductive and erotic way, unveiling the stupor of the correct minds of the epoch.

The movie, on the contrary, is extremely didactic around the causes that lead to the Mexican Oil Expropiation of 1938, decreed by President Lázaro Cárdenas. It shows the predatory ways of the foreign industry involved in the exploitation of natural resources in México, and it was in accordance with the nationalist "priism" speech of the era to which both of the names above worked for. It's a great cinematographic piece, that must be seen by the last Mexican generations, so consumed by neo liberal and globalization slogans.

Many countries face the challenges of oil reserves; they benefit from the money they gain, but pay a severe social cost for having oil. Mexico is not an exception to this rule, and the struggle of one family's fight against an oil company is masterfully depicted in La Rosa Blanca.

The acting, while a bit stylized, is quite good. (The film employed the services of some of Mexico's best actors of the time). Additionally, Roberto Gavaldon employs the use of two languages in the dialouge to create the disconnect necessary to understand the difficulties faced by Jacinto Yañez and his family.

La Rosa Blanca, directed by Roberto Gavaldon, is an exquisite work featuring cinematography by the illustrious Gabriel Figueroa. Originally completed in 1961, it was canned for eleven years because of its highly political nature. Mexico was suffering from the effects of a boom and bust oil economy during the early 1960s, therefore making its subject matter sensitive. It has often been mischaracterized as being anti-American: it is not. The film is, however, against the exploitative nature of oil corporations, a poignant fact that has significant value today.

My distaste for the final ten minutes of this film, where the film becomes a propaganda piece for the Mexican government, is the only reason this film does not get a ten.

After releasing the highly praised "Macario", director Roberto Gavaldón worked on another tale by German writer living in México, B. Traven (also the author of the story upon which John Huston's "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" is based), taken from real events that occurred in Veracruz in the 1930s, when México nationalized its oil. In the film, an executive of an American company pays to kill a peasant whose farm Rosa Blanca is rich in oil, with the complicity of the authorities of Veracruz. Although it was completed in 1961, the Mexican government considered that the subject matter of the film was "too delicate", because there was a boom in the oil industry, so it was shelved and forbidden for eleven years, and not released until 1972. A not very easy to find motion picture, it is worth trying to see it if the possibility arrives.