La Otra

Glamorous, selfish Magdalena (Dolores del Rio) married — and buried — money. Her estranged, mousy twin sister Maria (also Dolores del Rio) is scratching a living as a manicurist. Pawed by male clients, and unable to meet her rent, she’s ready to end it all — by disposing of Magdalena and stepping into her high heels. But can she carry it off?

This fiendish thriller may sound far-fetched (yes, yes, it is) but it’s emotionally honest, or at least, deeply romantic in the fatalistic mode of Mexican noir. We really feel for poor Maria as fate conspires to make her pay for her transgressions. (And who wouldn’t want to swap places with Magdalena, whose closet is bigger than her sister’s hovel of an apartment?)

After Bunuel, Roberto Gavaldón was probably the most gifted filmmaker working in Mexico in the 1950s. He’s a master of depth of field and loves mirror imagery, which is particularly appropriate in this tale of double dealers passing through the looking glass. In this movie he’s also blessed with two brilliant actors in the twin form of Dolores del Rio. As the novelist Carlos Fuentes wrote, “If Garbo was a woman who became a goddess, Dolores del Río was a goddess who became a woman”. Here she’s both, and doomed twice over.

Opening Night screening (March 26) will be followed by an on stage discussion with Mexico Noir curator and best-selling Mexican Gothic novelist Silvia Moreno-Garcia.

We appreciate the support of Filmoteca UNAM // DCP Courtesy of Filmoteca UNAM

La Otra takes a darker and more jaded view of morality than its Hollywood rivals… Everything we see is duplicitous and patently false.

David Melville, Senses of Cinema

Cinematographer Alex Phillips creates a variety of stunning sequences… the murder scene choreographed in silhouette is noir at its gorgeous pinnacle.

Heart of Noir

If one is pressed to explain the sensual and often masochistic beauties particular to postwar Mexican cinema, there are perhaps a half-dozen passages in Roberto Gavaldón’s La otra that could do the job in a trice.

Nick Pinkerton, ArtForum