Macario (film)

Macario is a 1960 Mexican drama, fantasy, and mystery film directed by Roberto Gavaldón and produced by Clasa Films Mundiales. It is based on the novel of the same name by B. Traven, which is loosely based on an ancient frontier legend, set in the Viceroyalty of New Spain (modern-day Mexico).

It was the first Mexican film to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. In addition, it was also entered into the 1960 Cannes International Film Festival.

Plot

A humble peasant and lumberjack named Macario lives obsessed with the poverty he suffers and the fear of death. Due to the precarious situation on the verge of hunger that he and his family live in, he begins to long for being able to enjoy a banquet without having to share it with anyone.

Pina Pellicer in an advertising photo for the movie. In it, he interprets Macario's wife.

In his stubbornness, he decides to stop eating until he finds a turkey that he can eat on its own. His wife, worried, steals a turkey, and Macario goes out into the solitude of the forest to eat it secretly from his children. In the forest, he meets three enigmatic personalities in succession. The first is the Devil in the form of a rich landowner, who first offers him his boots with silver spurs, but Macario tells him that he has no horse, and then offers him the gold coins from his pants, but Macario rejects him saying that he they would cut off their hands for a thief; finally, he offers him the forest, but Macario tells him that the forest does not belong to him, but to God and that, furthermore, having the forest, he would not stop being poor, because he would have to continue cutting firewood. He also does not share it with the second character that appears, God, in the form of a humble old man; Macario maintains that he can have whatever he wants, since he has everything and what he wants is a gesture, and while Macario shamefully admits that he doesn't feel like sharing his turkey, not even with God, he disappears, before Macario leaves. regret your decision.

Finally, Death appears, in the form of an indigenous peasant, in imitation of Macario, who tells him that he has not eaten for thousands of years, and Macario agrees to invite him (not out of fear, but out of understanding), since that Macario realizes that, given his inescapable design, no one escapes, and he also confesses that he invited him because, while he was eating, he would delay the death of Macario himself. As a token of gratitude, Death befriends him and gives Macario miraculous water that will cure any disease, on the condition that Macario has to see Death at the feet of the sick. But, if he sees him at the head of the patient's bed, nothing and no one can save him, because that being was already from Death.

Macario returns home to find his son cold from falling into the well. Macario tests the water with his son and, from then on, he is known as a miraculous healer, even leaving the doctor and the buried of the place without clients. Although at first he did not want to charge, people began to offer him food and money, which he later shared with the other poor people, and his fame began to spread throughout the region, until it reached the ears of the Inquisition. The ecclesiastical authorities order his capture, to try him for witchcraft.

To find out if Macario really has magical powers, they put him to the test, where among several prisoners he will have to say who lives and who doesn't. Among these condemned, they put the executioner of the kingdom, a strong and muscular man, and a condemned to death, hoping that Macario is wrong. To everyone's surprise, Macario tells him that the only one who will die is the executioner. When people begin to make fun of him, a messenger arrives with a letter where he spares the life of the condemned man, and when they approach the executioner to ask him to get up, he is found dead, since he was afraid of magicians and shocked to see Macario suffered a cardiac arrest. The religious then condemn him by divination to torture and burning.

Cacahuamilpa caves, a place used to film the scene of the "caverna de la Muerte".

At this, the viceroy's wife pleads with Macario, a prisoner awaiting execution, to see his sick son. When they take him with the child, he asks to be alone with her and finds out that Death has decided to take him away; As much as Macario begs him not to do it (because his own life depends on it), Death tells him that there is no alternative. Fearing, Macario flees, knowing that he will be sentenced to death for not saving the child. While everyone is chasing him, in the forest he meets the Devil and God again. They both remind him that he should have shared the turkey with them: the Devil reproaches him that, if he had chosen, nothing would have happened to him, and invites him to go with him again, but Macario rejects him; God, instead, warns Macario that his own death is close to him and that he must reflect on his actions. When he arrives in the cave of Death, he finds a large number of candles, each of which represents the life of a person and, if it is small, it means that it is about to go out and the person will die. Death affirms that Macario negotiated with something very sacred, which is life. Macario finds that his own candle is about to go out and tries to run away with it, but it's too late; Death warns him that there are rules that not even he himself can ignore and that in reality he has no power to delay the moment in which each one will perish, and makes him see that it is better to prepare to accept his fate instead of escaping., because it is useless: no one can escape Death.

Finally, the scene returns to the place where Macario shared the turkey with Death. He hasn't come home since then, and his wife and some villagers look for Macario in the woods only to find him peacefully dead, along with a turkey split into halves: one eaten, the other intact. It remains ambiguous if it was all a dream of Macario's before he died or a brief preamble of Death to play with him.

Cast

Main actors of the film

Pina Pellicer (in 1961) and Ignacio López Tarso (in 2015).

Reception

Macario received critical acclaim. On the Rotten Tomatoes review page, the film has an approval rating of 100% based on 5 reviews, with an average rating of 9.0/10. It was one of the most successful Mexican films of the year, grossing $80,000 in its first five films. weeks at the Alameda Theater in Mexico City.

Acknowledgments

This film ranks 59th in the list of the 100 best films of Mexican cinema, according to the opinion of 25 critics and film specialists in Mexico, published by Somos magazine in July 1994. It was the first Mexican film nominated for an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.

Awards and nominations

Oscar

Medals of the Film Writers Circle