Screens Sunday, October 23, 5:30 pm
Macario
Mexico / 1959 / 90 min
Director: Roberto Gavaldon
Producers: Armando Orive Alba, Clasa Films Mundiales
Screenwriters: Emilio Carballido, Roberto Gavaldon; B. Traven, based on the story by Los Hermanos Grimm
Cinematographer: Gabriel Figueroa.
Editor: Gloria Schoemann
Art Director: Manuel Fontanals
Music: Raul Lavista
Day of the Dead in Mexico, 18th century. The woodcutter Macario lives in poverty with his wife and his five children. Obsessed by his poverty and the idea of death, Macario dreams of a skeleton eating turkey. He decides not to eat at all until he can have a turkey all for himself. His wife steals a bird and gives it to him. Macario goes into the forest, where first the Devil and then God appear to him, but he refuses to share his meal with them. Death appears to him and he offers him half his banquet. In exchange for this, death gives him some water that will cure sick people, but only if Death appears at the feet of the patient. Macario cures his own son with the water. His fame as a healer grows after he cures the wife of rich Don Ramiro. Thanks to his many cures, Macario becomes rich, but the Inquisition arrests him and destroys his house. Macario succeeds in the test set him by the inquisitors, but they declare him a sorcerer and condemn him to be burned at the stake. He can only be saved if he cures the sick son of the Viceroy, but Death will not help him. Macario runs away to the forest. He again meets God and the Devil and ends up in Death’s cave, where Death shows him the candle of his life, about to go out.
Macario tries to steal his candle and run away. However, his fate must be fulfilled. His wife finds him dead beside the curiously half eaten turkey. Macario es un pobre leñador a quien apenas y le alcanza para mal mantener a su esposa y a sus cinco hijos que casi se mueren de hambre. Pero cierto día su mujer le regala un guajolote entero para que se lo coma el solo. El lo acepta y se adentra en el bosque para que nadie lo interrumpa, pero cuando esta a punto de comérselo recibe la visita de Satanás, de dios y de la muerte quienes le piden un bocado de su exquisito manjar. Se lo niega a Satanás y a dios, pero convida a la muerte ya que la ve muy famélica. Esta en agradecimiento le obsequia una pócima que le permitirá curar a los enfermos. Así, Macario se convierte en un famoso curandero. Pero en cierta ocasión la muerte lo lleva a unas grutas en donde puede ver un sin fin de velas encendidas que corresponden a las vidas de las personas. Macario pregunta por la suya y con gran espanto descubre que su vela esta a punto de consumirse, entonces la toma entre las manos y huye con ella. Finalmente Macario es encontrado muerto en mitad del bosque y resulta que todo fue una alucinación que vivió cuando agonizaba a causa de la congestión que le causo el haberse comido el solo el pavo que su mujer le había regalado
Cast: Ignacio López Tarso, Pina Pellicer, Enrique Lucero, Mario Alberto Rodríguez, Enrique García Álvarez, Eduardo Fajardo, José Galvez, Consuelo Frank, José Luís Jiménez, Alfredo Wally Barron, Sonia Infante, Manuel Donde, Miguel Arenas, Luís Aceves Castañeda, José Dupeyron, Celia Tejeda, Manuel Noriega, Mario García González, Pepe Y Sus Marionetas, Alicia Del Lago
Awards: Premio Instituto Ciudad de Valladolid, Placa de Plata y Pergamino, Valladolid, España 1961; Premio Copa de Plata, Santa Margarita, Ligure, Italia; Premio Diploma al Merito, Festival de Edimburgo, 1960; Premio a Lopez Tarso, Festival de San Francisco; Premio a la fotografia, Cannes
Film Language: Spanish
Subtitles: English
Film Year: 1959
Run Time: 90 min