Homeland Lost: Threats to the Subject-Land Continuum in Emilio Fernández’s María Candelaria (1943)

Abstract

The process of urbanization creates a social reality of estrangement from the land and natural world. In the 1940s Mexicans abandoned rural spaces in dramatic numbers; this era exemplifies this modern condition of separation from nature, and its repercussions appear in Mexican cultural productions from this era. Now regarded as a masterpiece of Mexican Cinema, the film María Candelaria (1943) directed by Emilio “El Indio” Fernández addresses this experience in a striking way: the film is at once socioculturally specific to post-revolutionary Mexico yet speaks to the viewer on a deeper and universal level through the depiction of the shared experiences of identity construction, social masks, perceptions of beauty, and, most importantly, separation from and loss of homeland. The film’s allure lies largely in its ability to spark emotions of the collective unconscious and this loss of homeland, and by extension a loss of culture, is central to this effect. The space of Xochimilco and its representation in the film serve as an alternate way of thinking about lo mexicano, as part of a symbiotic connection of land and self, harkening back to the Aztec and indigenous manners of thinking about the humanity and the environment. This article traces the historical context of the film under the Ávila Camacho presidency, then turns to artistic precursors to Maria Candelaria, following with a close reading of the characters’ relation to the film and their implications for the realities of the physical Mexican landscape.