Fernando de Fuentes: El Prisonero 13

The vague appearance of following legal procedures covers policy makers doing what they really want to do behind a theatrical smokescreen. We don't need to study the Mexican Revolution in particular to understand this -- one need only look at the highest levels of US Government involvement during the "War on Terror" and the "War on Drugs."   But it's compelling to see how El Prisonero 13/Prisoner 13 (1933) plays out as a human drama, from the perspectives of Colonel Julián Carrasco (Alfredo del Diestro), his subordinate officers and enlisted troops, "lady friends" and "business associates," and rebels and innocents rounded up in the night -- and their families and friends.  That's the backdrop.  But it's also a personal story that directly relates to the colonel's decisions and, really, whims, intersecting with fate and chance.





















I really like this early sound film -- it's sort of like a mix of Greek tragedy, a Thomas Hardy novel and all three versions of Paths of Glory (the 1935 novel by Humphrey Cobb, the 1935 "Tragedy in Sixteen Scenes" by Sidney Howard and the 1957 film adaptation by Stanley Kubrick). El Prisonero 13  is set in 1914 during the Mexican Revolution -- only a year or two before the setting -- during the concurrent First World War -- of Paths of Glory.















Gender roles and expectations play a big role in Prisoner 13.  There are four pairings of women, most of whom act in a braver manner than most of the men in the film. For the men, the higher in status, the more venal and corrupt. The delicacies of bribery are conveyed through coded conversations between those women trying to get a son or brother out of condemned lockup and the men in power. Condemned prisoners respond to their situation with a range of emotions, whereas the soldiers do mostly as they are told, like automatons. 

Today's Rune: Signals.