La ribellione degli impiccati

B. Traven's novels have sold 25 million copies in thirty languages. He himself is an obscure, shadowy figure and by all accounts he went out of his way to remain so. There is not even a birth certificate and it has even been suggested that he was the illegitimate son of Kaiser Wilhelm.

What IS certain is that 'he had Mexico in his bones' and the sharp-eyed will recognise his name on the credits as the author of 'Treasure of the Sierra Madre'. His cycle of 'Mahogany' novels of which 'Rebellion of the hanged' is the fifth' also reveal him to be a fervent socialist intent on showing the appalling, slave-like conditions suffered by Mexican Indians in the mahogany logging camps during the rule of dictator Porfirio Díaz.

The film's poster declares 'Love! Lust! Violence!' There is not a great deal of love on display here it must be said but there is a modicum of lust supplied by the ravishing Amanda del Llano. There is certainly plenty of violence in the form of the cruelty dispensed by the two monstrous labour agents who are played with relish by Carlos López Moctezuma and Luis Aceves Castaneda. Their ultimate fates at the hands of their victims represent the punishment fitting the crime.

It is directed by Alfredo B. Crevenna and Emilio Fernández who is uncredited. Where one leaves off and the other begins is uncertain but one cannot fail to see the influence of the mighty Fernández here in terms of characterisation, dramatic tension and a tendency to 'overcook' it. Atmospheric cinematography and powereful score are supplied by his regular collaborators Gabriel Figuroa and Antonio Díaz Conde. Certainly no stranger to Fernández is Pedro Armendáriz who is immensely sympathetic as a Tzotzil Indian. Unusual to see Víctor Junco dressed as a peon rather than in his customary lounge suit.

Although a Silver Ariel was awarded to editor Gloria Schoemann one feels that there may have been some 'censorial' editing here. The material is as brutal as cinema at the time would have permitted and packs quite a punch as both film and social document.

B. Traven said that 'an author should have no other biography than his books'. In his case that is all we are ever likely to have.

"Rebellion of the Hanged," alludes to workers who broke any rules being stripped to the waist and hung by their wrists high above the ground for countless hours on end. Some were even whipped while they were hanging Then they fought back.

This cruel punishment just made living and working in a Mexican mahogany plant that much worse. The workers were not certified slaves, but they may well have been, because quitting the job was impossible due to no way to get out of that part of the forest.

Pedro Armandariz is excellent as the father of a young boy, trying to support both of them. Ariana Welter is fine as a woman who arrived with him and the boy at the camp. In one sad scene, she tells the son that his father is working, when he really is hanging in pain.

This film is an indictment of conditions that existed at that time.