Fernandez is best known for María Candelaria (1943) one of Mexico's most beloved films of all time. It won the Grand Prix at the Cannes International Film Festival
Zona Roja was written by Emilio Fernández and José Revueltas. Cinematography was by Daniel López and Music was by Manuel Esperón
This film reminded me a lot of Fernández's great Classic Mexican Noir Salón México (1949), and also the equally impressive Greek film Ta kokkina fanaria aka The Red Lanterns (1963). I'm not in any way shape or form an expert on Mexican and Greek films, but of the few I've seen, I've found a lot them are almost bordering on being semi-musicals. They have quite a bit of song and dance integrated into their plots. Called "Cabaretera Noir."
The American films about prostitution usually center on individual prostitutes rather than whorehouses and run the gamut from serious, to exploitation, to comedy, to fantasy, think Girl of the Night, Cinderella Liberty, BUtterfield 8, Crimes of Passion, The Happy Hooker, Kiss Me, Stupid, Klute, Last Exit to Brooklyn, Leaving Las Vegas, Mighty Aphrodite, Hot Skin for Cold Cash, The Naked Kiss, Pretty Woman, Requiem for a Dream, Safe in Hell, Taxi Driver, and Whore, there are probably more.
There are a few films that come to mind about brothels the serious A House Is Not a Home, McCabe & Mrs. Miller, Pretty Baby, Walk on the Wild Side, the docu/exploitation film Lusting Hours, and the films bordering on comedies like The Cheyenne Social Club, The Reivers, and The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. There are of course many others that contain shorter brothel sequences.
The three that especially remind me a lot of Zona Roja are The Red Lanterns, along with the "roadhouse" section of Lusting Hours and Big Kathy's whorehouse with the elaborate entertainment show the house put on for its clients in A Rage In Harlem.
Zona Roja translates to Red Zone which is the Spanish equivalent of what we'd call the Red Light District, i.e., pleasure district, the other side of the tracks, the tenderloin and other creative and colorful euphemisms. The red light district with the El Parisio brothel/cabaret is set on the beach near the fishing boat docks in Acapulco, the other locations used in the film were Coyuca de Benitez, Icacos, and the beach at Playa Azul, mostly in the state of Guerrero, Mexico. I believe the island hideout near the end of the film was shot around the lagoons of Alvarado, in Veracruz, Mexico.
The basic story is like I mentioned earlier, sort of an updated version of Fernandez's Classic Noir Masterpiece Salon Mexico. In that film, Mercedes is a hooker who is paying her younger sister's way at an exclusive, upper class, boarding school. She sacrifices for her to have a better life and doesn't want her to know what she does for a living. That was back in 1949, Fernandez had to disguise the fact that Mercedes was a whore leaving a vague impression that she was a sort of taxi dancer/B-girl.
In Zona Roja Fernandez was no longer restrained by censors. Lenore (Fanny Cano) is openly a hooker. She was seduced by a pimp and was "sold" to La Madame to work off his debt at El Parisio, a beachside bordello. She also supports her baby daughter. Her daughter is in the care of a nearby fisherman's family who live just down the beach. The baby's father Juan (Armando Silvestre) is a two bit cholo in prison for killing the pimp who put her there. Leonor is one of the most popular whores in the house.
El Parisio is run cooly and efficiently by La Madame (Venetia Vianello). In addition to the whorehouse/cabarete, the business also includes a separate dormitory for the ladies, a beach bar, and an outdoor detached kitchen. La Madame employs a stable of eight to ten hookers, bar tenders, bouncers, a house band, housekeepers, waitresses, cooks, kitchen workers, dishwashers and a driver. Besides working the house, the ladies also do some streetwalking outside the "zone" along the docks to troll sailors, yachtsmen, and tourists.
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| Lenore (Fanny Cano) |
She heads down along the quay away from the oncoming headlights and approaching sirenes. The other hookers that are caught are loaded into a police van.
Lenore continues to flee and runs out on a dock to where she sees some fisherman unloading their catch days catch.
She asks them to hide her. They laugh and push her off the dock. She swims back towards shore coming out on the beach in the moonlight. She walks down the beach towards the El Parisio.
Leonor enters the bordello. La Madane is watching it all as she looks down upon her domain from her usual perch on the balcony. Leonor walks across the crowded dance floor and out the other side, she heading for the dormitory.
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| La Madame (Venetia Vianello) |
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| Leonor walks to her crib in the dormitory |
In her crib. Leonor strips out of her wet clothes and pops into the shower where she washes the salt out of her hair and off her body.
Dried off, dressed up, makeup applied and hair brushed Lenore is ready to go and pedal her ass to the clientele of El Parisio. Another typical day in the life of a woman of the evening.
Meanwhile, Juan Leonor's boyfriend, has escaped from jail and is making his way down along the coast towards Acapulco to rejoin Lenore.
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| Juan working his way down the coast. |
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| Juan (Armando Silvestre) |
So Juan is set up by Leonor with a stake and new clothes clothes, but things go Noirsville when Juan decides he can't wait. Cash for gash doesn't sit well with Juan. Watching her work her way out from under the debt by making the money on her back with every smelly pinche, sticks in Juan's craw.
Juan not only beats the shit out of a fresa, one of El Parisio's most important clients but he also decides to rob a bank.
Noirsville
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| El Parisio Beach Bar |
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| Playa Azul |
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| Playa Azul |
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| the detached kitchen for El Parisio |
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| El Parisio Band |
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| you must settle accounts |
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| Leonor & Juan |
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| Playa Azul |
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| El Parisio Band |
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| El Parisio Band |
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| El Parisio Band and floor show |
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| Emilio Fernández as a backwater rebel |
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| Bank robbery loot |
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| Playa Azul |
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| Playa Azul |
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| Police Raid |
Is the film great? No. I would have trimmed it a lot and tightened things up. But I'm judging from an
American viewpoint, and I'm videomaker, editor, and director myself. For me as is, it's too close to being what American Sexploitation was in the mid to late sixties. Basically all of a sudden there were no longer any restraints to what you could depict on the screen and like a kid in a candy store you over do it until you get sick. The film doesn't show any more than your average "R" rated film does nowadays, it just over does it. An experienced cook knows how much salt to add to create the perfect mix in a balanced dish.
Back then, the cooks/directors didn't know how much to add to get that balance of sex & story. but you can't blame them, in the US the Motion Picture Production Code was enforced from 1934 to the 1960s and when it started to crumble. They were flying blind, for me, some of the shots are held a bit longer than was necessary (again think of that kid in the candy store only this time he's visually devouring a male fantasy and can't stop himself). I'm sure it's a good example of what females complain of, as being subjected to with what they call the "male gaze." It Mexico, a predominantly Catholic country it must have been worse.
So add to the above the addition of almost the complete floor shows of El Parisio entertainment with
even more bouncing boobies (Mercedes Carreno), and you're slowing the pace of the film. But again
these are modern and American criticisms. It may have been perfect for Mexican Grindhouse theaters in 1976. It's worth a view if you can find it and it definitely needs a restoration. Screencaps are from a what looks like a digital VHS copy.
The film to its credit doesn't go Hollywood happy ending. It's definitely Noirsville Mexicana. 6-7/10
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