Watched the movie Salon Mexico; a B&W Mexican film. Shorn of melodrama or exaggerated display of emotion, the film tells the story of two sisters Mercedes and Beatriz. All alone in this world and fighting poverty, Mercedes’ only aim in life is to give Beatriz a proper education and see her lead a comfortable and respectable life. Throwing herself and her life into the street gutter where all the vices of stealing, duping, whoring etc are in full force, Mercedes works tirelessly to provide for her sister. She serves and dances at the Salon Mexico where in spite of her earnings she is always seen to be wanting.
Her weekly day of salvation is Sunday, when she goes out to meet her sister at the boarding school to take her out.
Beatriz is a lovely lady, good in her studies and refined in her manners. She is in love with Roberto her Principal’s son who is a lieutenant pilot and has returned from Japan, decorated as a war hero.
Mercedes’ casual association with Paco, a villainous thug takes her life into difficult circumstances. After a robbery when Paco forcibly seeks shelter in Mercedes’ home, she is arrested by the police. Her ardent supporter is a policeman called Lupe who admires her wonderful character and commitment to a cause. For him she is an angel and more than a mother. He rescues her from jail and seeks her hand in matrimony.
When the Salon Mexico proprietor desires to introduce her as the charming girl, who steals but doesn’t own anything, before an officers group of Roberto and others, she recluses and is fired.
Godliness and saintliness are great things. Like many other films, the film questions whether poverty is an evil. Is being poor a curse? Are the poor not entitled to live a life of dignity? Mercedes speaks of Gods and angels, of disappearing into the vaporous sky where God and heaven are nearer.
On the eve of her fateful day she promises Lupe that she would move out and find a house to give away Beatriz. Symbolically, she climbs the flight of stairs to her room. Paco who has escaped from the prison is waiting inside, lurking in the shadows. He threatens her to accompany him to Guatemala. When she refuses, he threatens to target her sister who is getting married to Roberto.
Mercedes says, “Fate made you come to this room today and you will not leave this room”. She stabs him and he shoots her to death.
Beatriz ignorant of her sister’s death awaits her on her graduation day. Roberto and his mother congratulate her on her graduation and the Principal says “Your sister has gone on a long journey.”
Salon Mexico is a familiar yet unique film, capturing the aspirations of the working class, the dark force that engulfs us in our life and the eternal struggle that rages between ambition and reality. In Mercedes’ case, her compromises ultimately extinguish her life.