This is a weird story about a small town, kind of coastside, where a curious mix of characters live, which are in a way caricatures of Mexican countryside people (the fisherman, the long-disappeared sailor, the priest, the devout women, the municipal president, etc...) Among these characters, we find an "evil woman of ill repute", and a young boy that falls in love with her. But this is just the backdrop for the story: One day, this woman is kicked out of town discreetly, and humilliated by having her hair braid cut (the title's "trenza").
Someone finds the braid in the street the next day, and somehow proclaims it is the braid of a saint, dropped from heaven as a miracle for the town... ....weird thing is, things start going well for the town, and the relic from an evil woman is working miracles.
The fanatical impulses of a whole town break loose, to disastrous results...
I won't comment further, but there's an Alfonso Arau movie that sounds very much like this, called "Picking up the Pieces"... in that one, it's not a braid, but some gal's hand, and this movie has Woody Allen, Sharon Stone, and other stars... but somehow, i still prefer La trenza...
I have to say that "La Trenza" has low production values, but even so remains, in my humble opinion, a good movie....also, it's a staple of 70's Mexican Films, when Mexican filmmakers where struggling to make good movies, but mostly fell in the "art house" kind of movie...
Try and see this one...
