Deseada

The story takes place in Yucatán , Mexico . Deseada ( Dolores del Río ) has been left in the care of her younger sister, Nicte ( Anabel Gutiérrez ), sacrificing her own youth and happiness in her work. Nicte is engaged to a Spanish gentleman named Manuel ( Jorge Mistral ), whom she has never met.

Superbly filmed on location, the first sequences seem to come from long ago;it takes the arrival of the train (and the fiancé) to enter the modern world .But anyway , "Deseada " looks like a legend ,close to a Greek tragedy , because we understand ,through the veiled ominous words of the witch, that the heroine is cursed ; she won't escape her fate ; when she falls in love , she knows that her affair is doomed from the beginning ;the sun and the moon do not meet ,and if they do,it's an eclipse ,darkness ; her lover and her will remain shadows on a wall ; it's revealing that Deseada 's (=desired woman) meeting with Manuel looks like a dream ;and when she enters the church ,she knows that the Christian religion is powerless against the old pagan curse .Dolores De Rio is magnificent,her luminous face longing for a happiness which will never come .

Roberto Gavaldon is an overlooked director nowadays:this movie, "la otra " (remade as 'dead ringer " starring Bette Davis)"palma di tu mano" and "la escondida "deseve to be more widely known..