The Curse of the Crying Woman (Rafael Baledón, 1963)Okay, first of all, this frickin' guy scared the shit out of me. Twice. The first time wasn't so bad, I guess. Just a little jolt when he finally reached through the door to grab Jaime. But the second time— oh my god. I had totally let me guard down and just got absolutely got played.
One reason that moment is so successful is that it's unique in the film. This is not a scary movie. It's mostly atmosphere and camp. In a lot of ways, it's very much out of place in this marathon. There's no hint of transition in
The Curse of the Crying Woman, no sign of some sort of Mexican new wave. It doesn't even feel like a 60s film (though I should watch a Hammer film from 1963 for a comparison). It's a total throwback to 30s and 40s Hollywood; much closer in style to
Cat People (1942) than to
Night of the Demon (1957). Compare
The Curse of the Crying Woman to Hitchcock's
Psycho, made three years earlier, and it's a little laughable (though that's admittedly a high standard).
But, in technique (and budget), Baledón's film doesn't really even stand up to the Universal movies of the early 30s. It's not quite Ed Wood territory, but there's a good deal of C-grade filmmaking on display here (for some reason, I kept thinking of the flimsier entries in Universal's
Sherlock Holmes series; I guess it was the hounds). There's a scene near the end where the three dogs are supposed to be attacking a pair of cops, and it's so obvious that the actors are using food to create the illusion that the dogs are biting them that it almost seems like it must have been an intentional choice.
Then, in that same sequence, there's this bizarre attempt to make it look like the dogs are attacking us through the camera (at least I think that's what they were going for) by sticking the food bait on a pane of glass in front of the camera and letting the dogs eat it off. It's cut together very fast, but it still doesn't work at all, especially as the dogs leave a good amount of slobber on the glass.
There are plenty of little moments like that — the collapse of the house probably couldn't have looked any more fake — and added together they really make the film feel amateurish. But this great quote from the director's bio in the DVDs special features really puts that in perspective: "The truth is that many of these were slick and professional despite the haste in which they were shot—in 1958 alone, for example, [Baledón] directed ten feature films! In a 1989 interview, [he] seemed to downplay his talent: 'If its true I achieved a certain standard of quality, it is also a fact that [this level] wasn't very high. But what I did, I did well ... I will never consider myself a good director ... Let's say that I was an artisan.'"
Through the first half of the film, I was prepared to deny the director the title of artisan. After a cool, amusing, violent little prologue, the story gets mostly very boring for a while. But the moment that Amelia starts to snap — when she tries to strangle the old man passing by — there's this sudden and unexpected explosion of visual creativity that's just really great. worm already posted the turning point moment — the eyes in the sky — but I also love this shot from just before that:
From that moment on, Baledón's talent really emerges. It's not consistent by any means, but there are some very strong flashes of inspiration. The flashback sequence is an obvious standout. That so much of the film feels like its from an earlier time makes this more contemporary feeling moment all the more satisfying and effective. Watching, I just started cheering inside my head, like, "Yes! Yes! More of this!"
Those stills also capture another thing I really like about Baledón — his use of close-ups. He seems to have a real affinity for the faces of his performers, including those hounds, and he films them really well. He's equally comfortable cutting to extreme close-ups or employing medium close-ups that often feel almost like picture portraits — something that really fits the gothic atmosphere of the film.
Given the way the film alternates great moments with laughable ones, the way a seemingly dated sensibility is occasionally interrupted but a contemporary style, the way the director seems a rank amateur at times and a craftsman at others, I wonder if maybe
The Curse of the Crying Woman fits this marathon better than it first appeared. Maybe this is Mexican cinema in transition; maybe it's just moving at a different rate. There's certainly not the same kind of dialogue with other national cinemas that we've seen elsewhere in this series; in fact, what there is instead is a conscious effort to imitate the success of Universal horror movies from thirty years earlier. But maybe it's just that much younger of a cinema. This quote from the special features certainly gave me that impression: "Unfortunately the same flaws that damage other Mexican fantasy films of the era—ill-conceived makeup and effects, at least partially the result of inexperience in the genre on the part of technicians—are present even in Baledón's better efforts. But it is to his credit that the ludicrous potato-nosed 'monster' in
El hombre y el monstruo, for example, does not seriously harm the overall impact of the movie." Potato-nosed monster FTW!
Back to the faces thing, though. I think there's something more going on with that than I've been able to figure out — some thematic relevance that's eluding me. Why exactly does Selma's face turn into a mask at times? Is that part of the legend? I don't know. But it's cool how, at her end and the film's end, the emphasis is again on her face.
Okay, that Fin still doesn't directly follow those others like I made it out. I just thought it looked cool at the end of that column of stills.
Anyway, none of the stills above are even close to being my favorite shot in the movie. No, that honor most definitely goes to this one:
Aww! Who's a good hound? Who's a good little hound? You are! You're my good little hound!
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