Customer Reviews

Aventurera

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This film deals with the story about a yong woman who loses her parents at nearly the same time and is forced into a life of prostitution working in a seedy cabaret, for a madam who has a double life. It is one of the best films Mexico ever made and it is a very well written story, with a great cast and great settings,this film should be enjoyed by any one interested in great cinema.

I think it was back in 1996 when I had read an enthusiastic review of Alberto Gout's 'rediscovered masterpiece' "Aventurera", which was playing in "art houses" throughout the US. My late friend Rosalind (to whom I'm dedicating this review) read the review with me, and said that it sounded like something we had to see. Well, it didn't happen until now. My dear friend "Sun" saw the film recently, and told me that I had to see it. And am I glad I finally did! "Aventurera" is an extremely entertaining, wildly melodramatic, over-the-top tour de force of Mexican cinema. Starring the popular, Cuban-born dancer Ninon Sevilla (she's still working, by the way, in Mexican Television), "Aventurera" delivers the goods. Ninon plays sexy but "good girl" Elena Tejero, whose father shoots himself after he learns that his wife has left him for another man (Elena caught them in a passionate embrace). Elena leaves Chihuahua for Juarez, where her ardent "friend" Lucio (an oily, pimpish Tito Junco) gets her drunk and drugged, then sells her into white slavery under the iron fist of brothel madam Rosaura de Cervero (Andrea Palma, who was a big star of Mexican cinema in the 30s and 40s) Elena becomes the "star attraction" of Rosaura's lush nightclub, manages to escape, and then hooks up with well-to-do attorney Mario de Cerverio (Ruben Rojo), who happens to be Rosaura's son! It is then that Elena plans her revenge against all who have done her dirt...The film is absolutely hypnotic in its baroque storyline, lavish musical numbers (you have to see them to believe it), seemingly endless parade of glamorous outfits, and, of course, the performances (no such thing as 'underplaying' in this film). Ninon was a dancer, and her numbers are lively and campy to boot. Her acting is a combination of Rita Hayworth, Lana Turner, Susan Hayward, Betty Hutton, and yes, Carmen Miranda. Her enthusiasm and vitality are quite evident!The film is "more Hollywood than Hollywood", and it does remind me somewhat of Columbia's "Gilda" (Rita Hayworth's signature role) and "Ladies of the Chorus" (a ludicrous "rich boy loves burlesque star" opus starring an up-and-coming Marilyn Monroe), as well as numerous films noirs. The cinematography is a gorgeous black and white, and the music is a joy, featuring such classic latin standards as "Frenesi" and "Adios". There isnt much in the way of extras on the DVD, (just an audio introduction to the film) but I'm not complaining. For lovers of good old-fashioned melodrama and a larger-than-life style of storytelling, then "Aventurera" is the film for you!

This review is dedicated to my dear friend Rosalind Scott, who would have loved this film!

Just released today on DVD by Facets Video so I ran straight down to rent it. Unabashedly campy, Aventurera pays definite homage to the Hays-Code American film noir style of the 1940s, while still maintaining the very Mexican form of the cabaretera drama. According to the DVD special feature introduction, Aventurera was re-released in 1996 to critical acclaim in LA and NY. This release (as opposed to a slightly earlier one by New Form Video) is thus aimed at the upscale North American art house crowd. It has white English subtitles, somewhat annoyingly burnt onto the original images (no switching on or off, and no other languages). The image quality isn't quite Jeanne d'Arc, but the black and white is sufficiently crisp and clear. I haven't seen the cheaper release, or the VHS, and so can't comment on those. For some reason with these Mexican titles Amazon almost never provides links to different editions as they do on all other films.

Back to the movie, it begins extremely campy and continues on in that fashion for some time, but the quick ending has more subtle and delightful noirish turns of fate than any film I can remember. I wouldn't dare spoil it for you. The story is well developed, the acting is above average, and the scenes are produced professionally. The (melo-) dramatic segments are framed by lovely little urban shots of Chihuahua, Juarez, and M?xico cities, as well as some jazzy Latin dance numbers, giving the viewer nice breaks. Personally my favorite number was the Samba one, performed in Portuguese. If it was in color it would have been as spectacular as those from Singin' in the Rain.

Cuban immigrant Nin?n Sevilla stars. Unlike most of her fellow cubano immigrants to Mexico, and despite her platinum hairdo, Sevilla's ancestry definitely seems to tend towards the Afro-Cuban variety. She gives a wonderful performance and brings a buxom star-powered presence to the film. Mexican film aficionados will note that the villainess is played by none other than Andrea Palma, who starred in the 1934 film La Mujer del Puerto. Mexican super-regular Miguel Incl?n (Dona Barbara, Mar?a Candelaria, Enamorada, Fort Apache, Los Olvidados, etc etc etc) gives a subtle but satisfying performance as the reluctant verdugo/enforcer Rengo.

Certainly this film is a bit overrated and overhyped, but it grows on you. While some of it seems clich?, so does the Godfather, because it was so often copied. Expectations mean so much when watching a film. Keep them within reason and you might be pleasantly surprised by Aventurera before it's over. It reminds me just a bit of Gilda (1946), and obviously came right on the heels of Emilio Fernandez's Salon Mexico (1949). The sleazy border scenes also seemed to remind me of Touch of Evil. I think it certainly compares favorably with other films of the era like Key Largo, All About Eve, or Nights of Cabiria. Definitely worth checking out.

Nothing could possibly prepare you for this movie, which is actually
several movies interwoven in one. The only thing you need concentrate
on is the incandescent presence of Ninon Sevilla in the title role as
Elena Tejero, first an obedient middle class daughter wearing horrid
plaid dresses and retarded hairdos that suddenly falls into hard times
and her work/career runs the gamut quickly from secretary/waitress to
cabaret dancer/prostitute.
This is a film you will never forget if only
because the intense gesturing and posturing (there is no acting here)
of Ninon Sevilla is too delicious for words, it needs to be seen, and
several times, to be appreciated. I will summarize by stating that her
first cabaret appearance is directly related to the "ritual oriental
dance" that was a sleazy feature of adventure/film noir and even horror
movies since the days of Pola Negri in "The Eyes of the Mummy", which I
believe is the first one.
The Oriental dance here is set in never-never
Arabia, with polyester harem pants, for the girls, false beards for the
lascivious men in the marketplace that tug at Ninon's curvaceous forms.
Her outfit is not to be missed: A square box hat-turban combination, a
necklace of many false karats and veils a plenty. Her orientalized
movements are hilarious and jerky, but her sensuality and raw animal
charisma comes through to save the day, and I am sure the appreciative
male audience back then rewarded this performance with far more
erections than laughter. But this is nothing compared to her "Tropical"
number which will follow later. We first see Ninon in her dressing room
nonchalantly supporting a headress that consists of two full pineapples
with branches and leaves on her head. Although she looks like a giant
insect that has sprouted antenna, she acts and moves so convincingly as
the "cabaretera" that we start to think this is normal, then she jumps
into her elaborate Brazillian number, heavily influenced by Carmen
Miranda and in the midst of a cloud of fog her headress is transformed
into a basket of bananas with foil accents that are just too divine for
words.
You can imagine that this flaming volcano of a dancer would
naturally attract as a husband an ultra conservative, nerdish lawyer
(Ruben Rojo as Mario Cervera) from one of "the best families in
Guadalajara" which here in the States would have translated as a
Republican from a Texas oil clan. He also happens to be the son of a
the "evil" woman that owns the cabaret where Elena was transformed from
studious secretary into dancing harlot. This middle aged woman
character, Rosaura Cervera (played by Andrea Palma) is so outlandish,
yet believable when one thinks that she anticipated the Mayflower Madam
in Manhattan by almost half a century, that it deserves a study of its
own, not to mention a seminar for split personality experts. Her
demeanor and looks is that of a Latin Marlene Dietrich, cigarette
holder included, and she is obviously Elena's nemesis. Their double
entendre conversations from the moment they meet again as 'decent'
women are the blueprint of drag queen competition dialogues,
accompanied by a cavalcade of sudden tragic expressions, fits of
fluttering from multi-leveled eye-lashes, twisting of the mouths into
serpent-like lip acrobatics, all of which could turn plumbers into
female impersonators if adequately imitated with patient study, which
actually makes this film a true primer for drag studies.
There are many more twists and turn to the story which includes a film-noir jewelry
heist, the unbridled passion of an escaped criminal, a murderous,
deformed, yet loyal friend of Elena's, and so much more excitement than
this summary could possibly describe. An extraordinary creation of
kitsch that anticipates Latin soap operas by a generation, this is a
groundbreaking document of B cinema, film noir and gender studies.

Elena Tejero (Ninon Sevilla) is a peppy young girl from a well-to-do family in Chihuahua, the kind who skips across the dining room to plant a happy kiss on her loving father's indulgent cheek. When her mother leaves home for another man and her father kills himself, a sad Elena decides to go to Juarez and find a new life as a secretary. It's not long before she learns men want more than dictation. Thanks to Pretty Boy Lucio, a pimp and gangster, the innocent Elena winds up drunk, drugged and assaulted in the brothel/cabaret owned by a woman known as Rosaura. This cruel queenpin of crime oscillates between Mother Gin Sling and, later, Joan Crawford on a fraught day. Elena's future is simple, Rosaura tells her. She'll entertain the customers on the nightclub floor and then entertain them again upstairs...or she'll feel the lame, mute Rengo's knife slice across her cheek. Elena does what she must, gains popularity as a dancer, never meets a man worth more than a used piece of wet chewing gum and gets out as soon as she can.

It's not long before Elena is a smash as a dancer and singer in Mexico City. She becomes engaged to a young lawyer of impeccable family...but there is a twist to the story about to happen that will shock and daze us. Elena by now has turned into a hard young woman who is determined to wreak vengeance on those who have ruined her life. She may be an ultimate victim but she's going to see that those who wronged her get theirs. Her curdled milk of human kindness would choke Mother Teresa. The twist, when it comes, is going to give Elena a lot of gimlet pleasure.

Aventurera is Elena's story. Hold on to your hats, your wallets and keep your zippers zipped. We're talking corruption and revenge; songs and production numbers; diaphanous costumes and pineapple hats; melodrama and death; sex and sin...lots of sin. The movie is a type of Mexican film called a cabaretera, a cabaret/crime/melodrama movie that was hugely popular in post-WWII Mexico. The girls are fallen doves. The cabarets and nightclubs are just a step above brothels. The owners, hustlers and crooks are cruel and corrupt. The customers are hypocrites. And the songs are great.

Ninon Sevilla may not have been a great actress but she had energy to burn. When she's strutting, stomping and shaking across the stage you'd swear she was channeling Rita Hayworth and Carmen Miranda. As a dancer, her hips do most of the work. They must have been double jointed. There are five songs and three full-blown dancing-singing productions. They're great fun. Her Chiquita Banana number is impressive...

"Chiquita Banana, girl of Martinique, dresses in banana leaves.
She doesn't wear dresses, she doesn't wear pants.
Winter, summer, she doesn't care. It's no difference what she wears,
And she rightly says she's ready if someone wins her heart."

Aventurera, for all the shameless melodrama, is also something of a statement about feminism. Elena might become a bitter, unforgiving heroine, but there's not a man in sight worth worrying about. They're all just macho weaklings, selfish drunks, groping bosses, sleazy crooks and horny adolescents. I could see Aventurera as an unusual American B-movie produced by Betty Friedan, Busby Berkeley and Edgar Ulmer.

With all the songs, dances, theatrics and...well, stuff, is Aventurera as campy as some say? Probably, I suppose, but no more than those Bollywood extravaganzas of passion, tears, dances and flashy costumes. It's most likely a movie you'll enjoy even if you say to yourself, "What next could possibly happen?" Just remember what that smooth singer early in the movie crooned to us with a Latin beat...

"Sell your love dearly, Aventurera.
May it pay the great cost of your painful past.
And he who awaits the sweet honey of your kiss
Must pay the price in diamonds for your sin.
Make him pay in diamonds for your sin."

The DVD transfer looks just fine. There is a video introduction to the movie by a man named Michael Donnelly who worked for years to have this Mexican movie better known in the United States. I recommend you hear what he has to say before watching Aventurera.

"Aventurera" has all the trappings of a modern, classic noir film. It contains, but is not limited to, an exciting robbery heist gone wrong, double crossing, sexual innuendos, a dastardly mother, and a femme fatale that can not only hold her own with the guys, but dance whenever a moment gets too tense. If it weren't for the subtitles or the Spanish-language, this little film could have been the next "Gun Crazy" (aka "Deadly is the Female"). Made during an era where films were willing, and excited to take challenges, "Aventurera" begins with a bang and ends with a bigger bang. It successfully keeps your attention through numerous characters, both evil and righteous, while continuing to keep you in the dark about the true motives of our heroine, Elena (played by Ninon Sevilla). It is a classic, it is independent, it is violent, but it isn't perfect. While I laud the work done on this film, it was not as entertaining as one may initially perceive. This is a noir film, it is stylish and backstabbing all at the same time, but there is another element throughout the film which heavily pulls it away from the true roots of the word "noir", and that my friends, is the nearly half-dozen song and dance routines smitten throughout. These songs, these two-steps, detract from what is happening, they pull you away from the world surrounding our characters, and honestly, are used as nothing more than filler. A 70-minute film easily became 101-minutes with songs diced throughout. It is the one crucial element that pulled "Aventurera" from a supporting noir to a mediocre entry into 1940s cinema.

What was there to enjoy about this film? Outside of the painful moments mentioned above, the characters were rich, the story was disturbingly dark, and the twists came from every angle, nearly a mile-a-minute. This was an action packed thriller that would have left little time for comfort had it not been for those songs. There were people we couldn't trust, people that we did - but betrayed us, there were scandals, there were loves, there were blackmails - everything was in place for a solid film. Even the subtitles were strong, giving us a strong plot and easily following structures, but those songs - ARG! I digress, Ninon Sevilla portrayed Elena as this no-nonsense girl who wasn't afraid to show her emotion and be the one to take the lead. Videohound's Independent Film Guide quotes, "Before we saw it ["Aventurera"], we'd never heard of its star, Ninon Sevilla, and now we can't wait to see some of her other movies...", and I couldn't agree further. She captured the audience through the screen. We followed her, willingly or unwillingly, we kept our eyes close on her every move, wondering when her next big move was being planned or what cog we were going to witness in her overall master plan. She made this film exciting. Sevilla could even sing and dance, and while it was a distraction from the film, she was graceful and elegant in the way that she did it. I cannot fault her, only the choice of the creators.

Speaking of the creators (awesome segway), compliments must also be awarded to the writer and director of this film. Sans the dancing and singing, this is a strong unknown entry into the world of foreign noir. The story was tight; the tension between the actors felt real, and the construction of the story seemed solid. There were elements that felt too lightly handled, but when it came to the big bang moments, the team behind this film had no problem showing us their goods. "Aventurera" shocked me, much like other films from the 40s, with its dark sexual undertones. From the beginning of our film, we are introduced to infidelity and prostitution, and the bus doesn't stop there. This pushed the boundaries for this film and demonstrated a darker side of noir that reminded me of an early American noir feature entitled "Detour". Just like Ulmer, the creators of "Aventurera" have no issues with showing us poverty, and how the corrupt value of money can spark even the slightest greed in any heroine. On a side note, I especially enjoyed the portrait of Rengo, this crippled sidekick that steps out of the shadows for his heart. "Aventurera" is a very suspenseful film, and was able to keep this audience right at the edge of my seat.

Overall, this isn't a perfect film. This is a noir film from the top to the bottom, but in the middle there is a muddled murkiness that doesn't seem to fit and was added just to appeal to a masculine audience. If I have said it before, I will say it again; the song and dance numbers were destructive to this feature. They felt like commercials, interrupting key moments with breaks, only to return with this viewer feeling less excited about the future. There is one song which Sevilla wears bananas while dancing which brought me into a frustrating sweat due to its similarities to a horrid pseudo-documentary entitled, "Carmen Miranda: Bananas Is My Business". This was the only moment where "Aventurera" felt stale and cliché. Was this overplayed Spanish-speaking cliché used only because it wanted to assure American audiences that they were in Mexico? Again, I cannot sit here and say that I loved everything about this film, because it would be a lie. I loved the juxtaposition between Sevilla and her arch rival, Rosaura (played by Andrea Palma) - their scene shot sparks from my DVD player. The characters are worth viewing this film once, maybe twice, but the songs are fast-forward-able. I can suggest it. See how dark in the late 1940s were for those living in Guadalajara.

Grade: *** ½ out of *****

The movie is in Spanish. I have rented it before and viewed it with English subtitles. Now I bought the DVD for my own library, but unfortunately there are no English subtitles. There was no indication of that fact on the web site when I bought the DVD. I e-mailed the store about the problem, but never heard from them.

Aventurera is a bizarre mix of Busby Berkeley musical, feminist melodrama, and film noir---but it works. At the very least, it's unique and solidly entertaining. Recommended.

Aventurera is one of the best melodramas in old Mexican cinema. It helps to be familiar with Mexican film history to fully appreciate its importance. Otherwise, the film will probably just seem campy, over-the-top and overrated. Either way, Aventurera is certainly a lot of fun: the unexpected plot twists, Ninon Sevilla's costumes and dance numbers, and especially the confrontation scenes between the two female leads. The whole film is truly sui generis in its combination of elements of melodrama, movie musical and film noir.
As for the DVD, considering the price, I expected more. The image is probably as good as you're going to get at this point in DVD editions of old Mexican films, but there are no extras worthy of note. The 16-minute introduction is too long, somewhat over the map (couldn't they have at least scripted it?) and has several factual errors. A featurette contextualizing the film and commentary by different persons(such as film scholars and persons involved in the making of film,like Ninon Sevilla, who was alive at the time of the DVD release) would have been particularly nice, especially to explain to Anglo audiences why such a seemingly excessive film is regarded as a classic in Mexico.