05 · 08 · 25

CAYÓ DE LA GLORIA EL DIABLO

Rafael Aviña

Ignacio López Tarso is Don Eme or Emeterio, an illiterate man who collects newspapers and cardboard to sell it; a business he leaves when his arrogant nephew Juan (Sergio Jiménez) —who is ashamed of him and with whom he shares his modest little room in Dolores Alley in Mexico City's Chinatown— decides to go to the United States for a while accompanied by Chester (Ernesto Gómez Cruz): “Don't be offended, uncle, but it's a shame to get to your age and be a nobody...”, he says. With no job, no money, no raw material, he chooses the “profession” of fire-eater until, by chance, he ends up at Televicentro, where he will win by chance an amateur contest: this brief success will turn into a greater intimate and social dishonor.

With the support of Cinematográfica Marco Polo, owned by the brothers Leopoldo and Marco Silva, José “El Perro” Estrada and his co-screenwriter Eduardo Luján build in Cayó de la gloria el Diablo (1971) one of the most fascinating characters of Mexican cinema that only an actor like López Tarso would be capable of creating. This is demonstrated by his flirtations with an exceptional Evita Muñoz Chachita, as Nachita: “I even feel like eating you...”, with whom he undertakes some extraordinary scenes halfway between eroticism and comedy: “As soon as we're alone, I'll tell you my dream...”, she tells him and, at the same time, she will end up cheating on him with her young nephew, in a role with which Chachita would obtain the Silver Goddess of Pecime Award¹.

Cayó de la gloria el Diablo begins and ends with the enigmatic and nostalgic sound of the Latin American Tower clock that disappeared after 2010 in an intriguing way, and ends up being a lively, humorous and, at the same time, pathetic, moving and painful portrait of a good part of the Mexicans of that time; adults or even children, like that little girl terrified by that dirty homeless man who takes burning rags to his mouth or the kids of the elementary school of the Centro Escolar Revolución with their plywood boards to make the “gifts” for Mother's Day, surprised by the boasts of that fire-eater who, like them, is affected by a rainstorm that makes everyone flee through the surrounding streets like Chapultepec Avenue, which leads the character directly to Televicentro; a metaphor of a fame as immediate as brief as a chimerical synonym of social genuflection and a momentary economic reward.

The film begins in a parking lot on Artículo 123 street, where Don Eme picks up some cardboard and newspapers that he transports in an improvised cart and then crosses the Santos Degollado Plaza, between Independencia and José María Marroquí streets, where a fountain with a female statue is still standing. Later, when Juan goes with Chester to the USA, where all the women are “doll-like blondes,  not slugs like the one here...” referring to Popea (Claudia Islas), one of the Blanquita's dancers, Don Eme stays in his room doing the same as he does every day: he poorly eats a piece of torta, drinks  a cup of milk, listens to the Hora radio station or radionovelas and cuts out images of women to paste them on the walls of his tiny room with his dirty and gnawed T-shirt and to “eating fire” as his “uncle from Zahuayo” taught him, outside the Monumental cinema with “the best triple programs of the capital”, where he receives a coin or two, along with a couple of street musicians.

Cayó de la gloria el Diablo brings together several pathetic, ignorant and even repulsive characters, such as the protagonist himself, the gringo-like nephew, the obese chicken seller, the people of the neighborhood and the children who live there, the blind man who begs for alms in the bus (Omar Jasso), the Trio Señorial who in turn competes in the “Talent Fair”; Malafacha, the entertainer of the cabaret El Caracol (“The nightclub closest to your heart”) (Fernando Villafuerte), the fat delegate of the fair (Guillermo Álvarez Bianchi); Zoyla Margarita (Martha Aura), the soprano who has only sung at the wedding of a cousin in Salina Cruz.... “Wipe the sadness off your face and allow me to give you the best of prizes: A bag of candy...” as announcer Nicky Santini tells her.

The climax of the first part is the contest where López Tarso performs his crude fire-eating act dressed as an Aztec king accompanied by the chords of the fire dance interpreted on the piano by Maestro Chalo Cabrera, where he triumphs in a pitiful manner (“Tell the announcer to give the prize to the guy with the fire...”, orders director Mario Casillas), which consists of 200 pesos, the recording of a disc, a presentation in a revue theater and his bag of candy.

Then comes his meeting with Popea who invites him to dinner and his debut at El Caracol, his debut and farewell at the Blanquita theater surrounded by mockery and humiliation, the search for a book of poetry at the famous Othello Bookstore with the participation of actor and theater director Adam Guevara who suggests “El brindis del bohemio” (The toast of the bohemian), the disturbing scene in the interior of the Wax Museum on Argentina street, at the entrance of which there was the effigy of a crippled prostitute, and the laughable recording of the album at the now closed Cinelandia, next to the Latin American Tower.

What follows is the fall into the void of this “king for a day” who returns to where he started, more humiliated and beaten than before. Cayó de la gloria el Diablo is one of the most cruel films in Mexican cinema: a crude, fatalistic and implacable tale, curiously filled with a fierce and ironic humor with which José Estrada and Eduardo Luján explore the psychology of the Mexican; his traumas and frustrations, his small and elusive triumphs, his “ya merito”, his “casi, casi"², his sadness and joys and his mediocre obsessions. A masterpiece that will be shown at Cineteca Nacional next Tuesday, May 13 at 6 pm.

Translated by Adrik Díaz

Translator's notes

1. TN: The Silver Goddess Award is a film award granted annually by the Mexican Film Journalists Association (PECIME) in recognition of professionals and excellence in the Mexican film industry.
2. TN: “ya merito” an “casi, casi” are common expressions in Mexico that are used to say that something is about to happen, although many times it does not end up happening.