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The Christmas Holidays. The Mexican tradition and Mexican cinema | Part One: Posadas and Pastorelas

Rafael Aviña

Since its origins, Christmas stories around the world have been transformed into effective pretexts for hundreds of films with tender and sweet messages that tried to give faith to that lost spirit in the consumerist paraphernalia of gifts and parties, burying the true message of love and hope that comes with the celebrations of the birth of Jesus. However, Mexican cinema has contributed curious twists to the theme of Christmas and the Christmas festivities, taking Mexican customs such as the posadas¹, pastorelas², Christmas Eve dinners and celebrations as a starting point, and even playing with the figure of Santa Claus.

The first approach goes back to the animated short Una noche de posada (1935), in which Alfonso Vergara Andrade portrayed that Mexican festivity, foreshadowing hat spirit of good faith that appears in the final sequences of Fernando de Fuentes' The House of the Ogre (1938), set in a neighborhood of the Porfiriato³ called “Apartamentos López”, whose motto is the phrase “Morality and tranquility”. Fernando Soler, a bitter widower, father of two daughters, is the owner of this neighborhood inhabited by colorful characters of a society halfway between modern and conservative, hypocritical and liberal. At the Christmas Eve posada, one can distinguish among the extras the future film star David Silva, who is singing the Kyrie eleison.

In a more dramatic tone and set within a noir story, there is a disturbing sequence in another neighborhood where there lives a woman who has decided to murder and impersonate her millionaire twin sister —both played by Dolores del Río— in La otra (1946). Its director, Roberto Gavaldón, and its screenwriter, José Revueltas, took great advantage of the scene that takes place during the posada. At the moment of the crime, the piñata⁴ breaks and the muppet's head is left hanging and, at the same time, we observe the dead sister swinging grotesquely in a shadow projected on the wall and the murderer stripping off her clothes.

As a climax, we find Mi niño Tizoc (1971). In this film, Ismael Rodríguez tried to immerse himself in a humanitarian drama of the Christmas season by proposing an exacerbated story filmed in Xochimilco with an unlikely indigenous widower played by none other than rock singer Alberto Vázquez and his son Tizoc (Cuitláhuac Rodríguez). Both are rejected by the community, so they have to celebrate their own posada alone. Finally, in opposition to this melodrama, there is the comedy Trip to the Moon (1957), by Fernando Cortés. In this film, Tin Tan and a group of demented people including Ramiro Gamboa “Tío Gamboín”, Xavier López “Chabelo”, Eduardo Alcaraz, Alfonso Arau and others, chant the litany in an improvised posada with candles in an asylum, as a last message of love, peace and happiness...

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Translated by Adrik Díaz

Translator's Notes

1. TN: A posada is a popular Mexican celebration that takes place during the nine days before Christmas —that is, from December 16 to 24—. These festivities remind people of the pilgrimage of Mary and Joseph as they left Nazareth and made their way to Bethlehem. 
2. TN: A pastorela is a short play with music and humor about Mary and Joseph's journey to Bethlehem for the birth of Jesus Christ.
3. TN: The Porfiriato is the period of Porfirio Díaz’s presidency of Mexico (1876–80; 1884–1911), an era of dictatorial rule accomplished through a combination of consensus and repression.
4. TN: A piñata is a container that holds toys and candy inside and is broken at a celebration so that attendees can take everything from inside.