Rating: 4/5
Hooptober 4.0 | 9/31 | Countries 3/6 | Mexico | Decades 4/6 | 60s
Dr. Pablo Morales is a taxidermist. His shop window displays a remarkable assortment of animals — buffalo, jaguar, and whatnot — and posed skeletons of various creatures.
Above the shop is the apartment that Pablo shares with his wife, Gloria. Gloria confides in a visiting priest that her husband makes her miserable — he doesn’t want children, gets drunk, and wants to have sex with her. The house smells of dead animals. Worst of all, he doesn’t share her devout faith. The priest reminds her that her suffering will purify her.
Pablo goes upstairs to find Meche, the housemaid, crying because of Gloria’s cruelty. Pablo attends to Gloria, offering her an aspirin. She reprimands him, stating that only God can give or relieve pain. Gloria suffers from a crippling injury that causes her constant pain.
As time goes on, we learn Pablo does none of the things that Gloria says, other than smelling like animals and believing in science over religion. She continues to hurt Pablo and to convince their friends and family that he is an abusive monster.
But everyone has a limit.
Good lord, Amparo Rivelles does such a tremendous job of making Gloria deplorable. I don’t know of any person who would be as cruel as her, but it works for the story. The audience ends up hating Gloria more than Pablo ever could.
The movie is darkly comic — one of my favorite scenes is when Gloria leaves, and Pablo sneaks to the kitchen to Meche. It suggests they might cheat, but his secret desire is to have a big steak.
The movie’s pacing isn’t great, and historical sexism is inevitable and disappointing, but the film is consistently entertaining.
The ending is perfect!