Here we go! We’ve touched on the start of the Mexican Golden Age with Alla En El Rancho Grande and the stylistic zenith of the movement with Gabriel Figueroa’s cinematography in Enamorada; now it’s time for the most popular Mexican movie of all time: Nosotros Los Pobres. This is the film that every Mexican has seen.
So what’s new? Firstly, the nostalgia for past eras has been thrown out the window. There’s no more romanticized ranch life of Alla En El Rancho Grande or romanticized Mexican Revolution of Enamorada. These periods, as well as the indigenous idolatry of Maria Candelaria and Flor Silvestre, have been traded for the present day. Nosotros Los Pobres takes place in the city and features many everyday characters. This was the first major film that Mexican audiences saw themselves on the screen. The urban environment and tragedy-stricken characters resonated strongly with widespread experiences of the working class. Through the melodrama, audiences could process their trauma and gather around a unified Mexican identity, which was still being constructed in post-revolutionary Mexico.
A Reflection of modern mexico
The setting isn’t pretty. The city of Nosotros los Pobres doesn’t have the open spaces of the ranch or the quaint small-town feel of Cholula. Instead, people live so close together that they can hold conversations with their neighbors through their windows. The cramped contemporary urban environment would have been familiar to Mexican audiences in the city, at a time when the country was rapidly urbanizing. Following the Mexican Revolution and Second World War, the citizens were drawn to the quickly expanding metropolis of Mexico City, trading living space for work opportunities. Following this migration, more and more Mexican films were set in the city, such as the Rumberas of the late 1940s and 1950s (see Aventurera or Victims of Sin) and Bunuel’s Los Olvidados (1950).
The modern, working-class characters of Nosotros los Pobres were also more recognizable to Mexican audiences. Their sing-song, unpretentious speech reflected how most Mexicans spoke (and even served as the comedic punch in one of the whistle-led musical numbers), making them instantly identifiable. Pepe el Toro, played by superstar singer Pedro Infante, was an every-man rolling with the punches of poverty. His character reinforces the Mexican male archetype, as per Carlos Monsivais, with a character ‘simultaneously brave, generous, romantic, and cruel,’ a fierce family man, always ready to defend those he love. Pepe el Toro was more rounded than the virtuous men in Maria Candelaria and Alla en el Rancho Grande. He lived through the same poverty-stemming problems as his viewers, but fought it wherever he could, even if that landed him in trouble.
Unlike Alla en el Rancho Grande and Enamorada, which were both set in romanticized past, the cramped urban spaces and identifiable characters reflected contemporary Mexico. Through the modern setting and working-class characters, Nosotros los Pobres helped to continue building Mexican identity upon the foundations of the romanticized past with the help of melodrama.
Developing Mexican Identity through Melodrama
It’s easy to forget that Mexico is a hugely diverse country. With 63 official languages and many distinct cultures within it’s borders, building national unity has been one of the country’s success stories. The Mexican Golden Age was a crucial part of uniting the people within Mexico’s borders around a common identity. Films like Alla en el Rancho Grande and Enamorada constructed a romanticized past for people to look back on (instead of remembering it’s brutality), and gave the people pride in Mexican culture through the iconic dress and music. But the people needed spirit to get through the trauma of a rapidly modernizing country. This was just the job for melodrama.
So what is melodrama? According to Wikipedia, it’s an exaggerated version of drama, in which plot, typically sensationalized for a strong emotional appeal, takes precedence over detailed characterization. Whilst ‘melodramas’ have acquired a bad reputation for work that lacks subtlety and character development, the Mexican Golden Age films used it as a vehicle to guide their viewers.
Nosotros los Pobres ends with the quote ‘se sufre… pero se aprende’ (one suffers… but one learns) plastered to the back of a wagon. This comes *spoiler alert* after multiple surprise deaths, an eviction, and injustices. Seeing this after all the exaggerated tragedy is meant to encourage the audience to persevere through the turbulence of modern Mexico. It gives them a fictional space to process their real-life traumas resulting from the rapid urbanization of Mexico and widespread social displacement. Unlike later films such as Los Olvidados in which the characters are forgotten in a hopeless ending, the characters of Nosotros los Pobres (and it’s audience) learn to suffer with dignity. It serves to show that although we may be poor, we have love, we have dignity, we have a country that we can be proud of.
The melodrama celebrated the suffering of poverty and ennobled the working class. It showed audiences that they were not alone by uniting them with universal heroes to follow and hope for the future
What Next?
If you started here, head back in time to the start of the Mexican Golden Age with Alla en el Rancho Grande and admire it’s artistic zenith with Enamorada.
Looking forward, witness the rise of the rumbera genre, which built seedier urban environments off the back of the popularity of Cuban rumba rhythms with films such as Aventurera and Victims of Sin. Or view Luis Bunuel’s Los Olvidados as a counter-program to the hope and didactic messages of Nosotros los Pobres.
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