10 · 18 · 06

The Penetrating Look of Pina Pellicer

Doris Morales

Pina Pellicer’s brief yet significant career began in theater and in Poesía en Voz Alta, a poetry/ spoken word movement that greatly influenced her performances in film. The actress has achieved mythic status in the eyes of critics and academics, who have celebrated her mysterious beauty and how she broke away from traditional acting standards.

“Pina Pellicer is among the most original actresses of Mexican cinema in the 20th century. Like few of her colleagues, she managed to tap into the wealth of her inner world to create unique characters. Her work always steers clear of the melodramatic gestures that plague so many Latin American schools of acting. This delicate and fragile inner world allowed her, on the one hand, to create unforgettable characters on stage and film, but it also drove her to commit suicide,” said Reynol Pérez Vázquez, coauthor of the book.

Pina Pellicer. Luz de tristeza (1934-1964), (Pina Pellicer, Light of Sorrow) was presented by its editors: Magdalena Acosta, director of the National Cinematheque, and Iván Trujillo, director de National University’s Film Archive; film historian David Ramón and the book’s authors, Ana Pellicer and Reynold Pérez Vázquez; as well as Ana Cruz, President of the Association for Women in TV and Film.

Pina Pellicer. Luz de tristeza (1934-1964), concentrates on Pellicer’s career and her extensive contributions to theater and film. It includes a critical revision of her filmography, with texts by Ariel Zúñiga, David Ramón, Luis Ortega Torres, Roberto Escamilla (México); Christina Tilmann (Germany), Nicolás Quinteros y Rodrigo Martín Seijas (Argentina); Alexándar Dónev y Lora Tráykova (Bulgaria); Fernando Alonso Barahona y Carlos Díaz Maroto (Spain), among others.

The book originated with from an article commissioned by a magazine in Monterrey. “While I was doing the research, I found a wealth of information on Pina’s life and thought, this should be turned into a book,” said Reynold Pérez Vázquez.