The unbelievable and sad story of the innocent Eréndira and her heartless grandmother

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Movie
German title The unbelievable and sad story of the innocent Eréndira and her heartless grandmother
Original title Eréndira
Country of production Mexico , France , Germany
original language Portuguese , Spanish
Publishing year 1983
length 103 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director Ruy Guerra
script Gabriel García Marquez
production Alain Queffelean
music Maurice Lecoeur
camera Denys Clerval ,
Roberto Rivera
cut Kenout Peltier,
Jeanne Kef
occupation

The unbelievable and sad story of the innocent Eréndira and her heartless grandmother , also known under the short title Eréndira , is a 1982 film adaptation of the short story of almost the same name La increíble y triste historia de la cándida Eréndira y de su abuela desalmada by the Colombian writer and Nobel Prize winner for literature, Gabriel García Márquez , who also wrote the script. Directed by Ruy Guerra , Cláudia Ohana (as Eréndira) and Irene Papas (as her grandmother) took on the two title roles. The film was first shown on May 14, 1983 at the Cannes Film Festival . It had its German premiere on February 17, 1984.

action

Somewhere in the dusty rural nowhere in Mexico. "Eréndira was bathing her grandmother when the wind of bad luck began to blow ...". With these words the story begins. The 14-year-old, lolita-like exotic beauty has been exploited unrestrainedly by her grandmother since the early death of her parents and kept like a slave in a dilapidated, ghostly villa through which the hot desert wind blows constantly. She has to do all the housework and works, as if in a trance, all day to the point of exhaustion. Meanwhile, the enraptured and unscrupulous grandmother lives in her own world. She endlessly stuffs fruit into herself, talks to herself and howls uninhibitedly over records with sentimental French chansons that are played on an ancient gramophone. Or she lies as if laid out on a big lotter bed, talks endlessly to herself and gives Eréndira one instruction after the other. One day Eréndira is so exhausted from all the work that she forgets to put out the flickering candles on the candelabra before going to bed. A curtain catches fire and the entire house burns to the ground.

“My poor child, your whole life will not be enough to pay me for everything with the only thing you have.” These threatening words from the grandmother the next morning resemble a terrible premonition of Eréndira's future. The grandmother makes Eréndira a whore. From now on, anyone who is willing to pay for sex with Eréndira can have them - whether smuggler or desperado, day laborer or soldier. Soon she is the most famous prostitute in the area. The men desire her, and the grandmother gradually begins to revel in wealth. Eréndira let everything go through apathetically. When one evening she had to please almost a whole company of soldiers, she fell ill and had chills. Eréndira begs and implores: “Grandmother, I'm dying”. But the old woman stays hard and is cold as ice. "There are only ten soldiers waiting outside".

A glimmer of hope emerges when a boy of almost the same age approaches Eréndira, who stops in this inhospitable place with his father while passing through. The boy, blond and angelic in appearance, is called Ulysses and radiates a magical aura on Eréndira. The two adolescents sleep together, and for the first time Eréndira feels something like tenderness and human warmth. One day, when a group of monks from both women crossed the path, the men of God demanded that the old woman give her granddaughter up so that she could free her from the vice and raise her in awe until she married.

Eréndira goes with the monks and must first give up her long, beautiful hair. In the monastery, she is quickly confronted with a strict, ascetic way of life, but nevertheless says for the first time: "I am happy". Meanwhile, the greedy grandmother does everything in her power to snatch Eréndira from the clutches of the church. For 25 pesos, the old woman hires a complete stranger, Mexican farm boy, who marries Eréndira and thus complies with the ecclesiastical laws of respectability. Soon the girl ends up back in the old rut.

Her grandmother hopes that Eréndira will soon make contacts at the top. She leads the girl to the influential Senator Sanchez, with a bright red evening dress and new hairstyle ruffled up like a noble hooker. During the budding love game on the bed, the much older man grasps her between the legs and feels a lock under the dress. Unmoved, Eréndira explains what her grandmother told her to do. "I should tell you that you can have a messenger fetch the key if you want. And that you should give him a letter. With your seal. A handwritten letter so that nobody in the desert dares to bother us anymore. "

A little later Eréndira sees Ulysses again. He has brought three oranges filled with diamonds, which he gives to Eréndira. He tells her that he wants to free her from her grandmother that night. Eréndira is afraid; she says she will have to work for her grandmother for another ten years to pay off the debt. Meanwhile, the old woman is getting wealthier. Eréndira can actually escape from her clutches with the help of Ulysses and his father. But with the help of soldiers she takes up the pursuit. She intercepts the truck driven by Ulysses, and a soldier hits Ulysses uncontrollably. Eréndira is now back in the clutches of her grandmother. Thanks to a letter of recommendation from the senator, Eréndira can hardly save herself from customers, much to the delight of her grandmother - the other hookers in town remain unemployed and go to Eréndira angrily. They carry the huddled girl, lying naked on a magnificent bed, past the cringing grandmother and unload her along with the lotter bed in the middle of the village street.

The next day, granddaughter and grandmother move on. The old woman paints the girl's future life in pink colors. She says that the greats of the world will desire and court Eréndira. But the girl only thinks of Ulysses. He goes looking for Eréndira again. Meanwhile, her mentor, the Senator, dies of heart failure while driving. His last word is "Eréndira". One night Ulysses tracks her down, and they both sleep together immediately, while the old woman next door begins to declaim theatrically as if in a trance and sitting upright in bed.

Eréndira asks him if he would kill her grandmother. Ulysses then makes an arsenic-poisoned cake which he hands to grandmother for her birthday. The old woman stuffs her mouth and belly full with both hands and then falls asleep calmly on the bed. The next morning she is awake, only her hair is falling out in clumps. Eréndira and her young lover are now trying to get rid of their grandmother with explosives while she is playing the piano. Everything around her is destroyed, only the old one remains - a little torn - intact. "Now your debts are as big as they were on the day you started to pay them off from me," she tells Eréndira unmoved. Finally, Ulysses kills the grandmother with several knife wounds. Green blood stains his shirt. Eréndira looks at the palm of her hand, only smiles slightly, grabs the gold-filled doublet - the reward for Eréndira's activity as a whore - from the dead old woman and runs away free. Ulysses is left desperate and breaks down crying.

Off-screen epilogue: “She ran against the wind, she ran faster than an antelope. And no call from this world could stop them. And one never heard from her again. There was still only the slightest trace of their unfortunate history to be found somewhere. "

Production notes

The director of the film Ruy Guerra and his 19-year-old leading actress Cláudia Ohana were married to each other at the time of shooting. Shortly after the film premiered, the couple became parents of a daughter.

The film was shot in several rural (and extremely dusty) locations in Mexico ( San Luis Potosí , Veracruz , Zacatecas ) as well as in the Mexico City studio.

At the time of shooting, Oliver Wehe , who was only 15 years old from Munich and later theater actor, was the only German in the cast. Shortly before, Woe had become known with the role of the young Felix Krull in Bernhard Sinkel's TV version of Confessions of the Impostor Felix Krull .

Another German, Rainer Schaper , worked on the set of the film .

On the German side, Regina Ziegler and ZDF were involved in the production.

The film ran in 1983 in competition at the Cannes Film Festival for the Palme d'Or . Director and leading actress Ohana were present.

The FSK released the film from the age of 16.

criticism

Despite the involvement of the author of the original, Garcia Marquez, in the film (script), the international criticism was rather disappointed with the result.

The film's large dictionary of characters summed up Eréndira : “The symbolic, satirical story of a little fool who is led into prostitution by his greedy and heartless grandmother, despite a script by Gabriel García Márquez, turned into a disappointing allegory of the ubiquitous mechanisms of oppression in the present day Latin America."

The Movie & Video Guide judged: "Ambitious and fluidly directed, but unmemorable".

The film magazine Cinema calls the story "a parable on the material exploitation of sexuality and passion."

The Lexicon of International Films wrote about Eréndira : "Allegorical description of methods of exploitation and oppression in Latin America", and summed up: "With lush decor and optical ingenuity, Guerra's film is difficult to decipher because of its many surreal elements."

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Kay Less : The film's great personal dictionary . The actors, directors, cameramen, producers, composers, screenwriters, film architects, outfitters, costume designers, editors, sound engineers, make-up artists and special effects designers of the 20th century. Volume 3: F - H. Barry Fitzgerald - Ernst Hofbauer. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-89602-340-3 , p. 431.
  2. ^ Leonard Maltin : Movie & Video Guide. 1996 edition, p. 390.
  3. ^ Cinema. No. 2 (issue 69) from February 1984, p. 93.
  4. ↑ a b Klaus Brüne (Red.): Lexicon of International Films . Volume 8, Reinbek near Hamburg 1987, p. 3965.

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