08 · 14 · 25

JUEGO DE MENTIRAS “LA VENGANZA DE LA CRIADA”

Rafael Aviña

A story of great poetic spirit featuring intriguing scenes of symbolic and violent eroticism, Juego de mentiras [Game of Lies] is the debut film by filmmaker Archibaldo Burns, who won third place in the Second Experimental Film Competition held in 1967. The film focuses on the tense and pulsating relationship between a society lady played by Natalia or Kiki Herrera Calles and her former young maid, Luisa (Soledad Jiménez or Irene Martínez Cadena), who was recently released from prison for the death of a woman. 

Surely, nothing could be further from the commercial Mexican cinema of the 1960s, which had discovered an erotic-commercial ploy to crudely sell an advertisement-like sensuality that showcased well-proportioned "blondes that everyone desires" (Don Juan 67, Acapulco a go-gó, La muerte en bikini, Báñate mi amor, among others). These films featured the tropical paradises of Acapulco and similar locations, bathtubs and swimming pools, youth clubs enlivened by the rhythms of the moment, lewd situations tending towards melodrama or comedy, and the appeal of beautiful and voluptuous young women dressed only in bikinis, negligees, or underwear.

Released belatedly five years later, in April 1972, and in second-run theaters such as Colonial, Popotla, Bahía, Titán, and Soledad, and retitled with the crude name La venganza de la criada [The Maid's Revenge], Juego de mentiras is an exceptional and sensitive experimental work of social criticism with a disturbing and aggressive concept of eroticism that anticipates works of the new millennium, such as Japan and Blood by Carlos Reygadas and Amat Escalante, respectively. This distinction comes not only from its raw and direct treatment, but also from the use of non-professional actresses (and actors), cinematography by Milosh Trnka, and a pulsating soundtrack by Manuel Enríquez.

This is a film that undoubtedly should have won the top prize at that second, frustrating Experimental Film Festival, which declared no winner and awarded second place to Carlos Lozano Dana's film El mes más cruel. El mes más cruel, shot in Cuernavaca, tells the story of a mature, wealthy American woman vacationing in Mexico who loses her virginity and meets a young man from a humble background. Juego de mentiras was inspired by the story El árbol by writer Elena Garro and adapted by Archibaldo Burns himself, who was 53 years old at the time.

It is a film that delves into frustrated desires, class resentment, ignorance, sexist and oppressive education, and the magical thinking of indigenous communities through the figure of the village girl who has no choice but to become a maid in the mansion of a bourgeois couple. There, they call her “peasant” behind her back, and the mistress agrees—albeit with disgust—to allow her former “maid” to take a shower in her bathroom.

Through constant flashbacks narrated by Luisa, the story reveals her lies, concealed information, and hallucinations. Juego de mentiras offers an intriguing examination of femininity and the contrasts between the wealthy and the poor. It also explores women's solidarity, which the protagonist understands strangely and brutally. Despite some convoluted dialogue and the protagonist's limited dramatic range, she maintains a compelling and devastating presence.

The protagonist ends up murdering her employer, not from revenge against racism or verbal abuse, but to return to women's prison, a place without men. Throughout the story, men consistently deceive, beat, rob, and sexually abuse her. Throughout the story, men consistently deceive, beat, rob, and sexually abuse her. These include her employer's husband, who tries to possess her behind his wife's back, and a demonic character with a long mustache and whip who appears to harass and sexually dominate her. This haunting portrayal of male violence represents the film's most compelling discovery and makes it worthy of rediscovery.

Translated by Abigail Puebla