Thoughts on: Streetwalker (1951)
A 1951 Mexican drama with whole-hearted acting and a very well written story. It constantly introduces revelations that make you think “wait, what?!”
About Streetwalker
Streetwalker is a 1951 Mexican Spanish movie directed and co-wrote by Matilde Landeta (1910-1999), a pioneering female director. The movie stars Miroslava, Elda Peralta and Ernesto Alonso as the main characters.
Story, depth and style
It’s a drama about two sisters that don’t speak to each other. Maria (Elda Peralta), is a street worker. The other sister, Elena (played by Miroslava) married for money. And they randomly meet again after a long time.
Streetwalker has a sociological depth, addressing how life isn’t always fair, the effects of aging and the benefits of being young. It also adresses missed opportunities and the inevitability of death. It talkes about trauma, fear and failure.
The visual language is more articulate and daring than many movies today. The movie establishes its focused and purposeful viewpoint in the opening scenes. It clearly sets the tone for a noir vignette. The movie is beautifully shot and you can see that in the opening scene, where we only see the women’s legs and indescriptive wide angle shots, almost suggesting that we will only see a very specific viewpoint, with only the necessary narrative details.
It’s surprising to see how a 1951 movie can be so universal. There isn’t anything in the movie, besides the costumes and some technical elements, that would make it seem like a 72 year old niche movie from Mexico. The movie deals with some of the main social and psychological themes in human experience: money, family, forgiveness.
I will use the term cautiously as it may have a negative connotation, but this movie had elements of what a multiple-season TV telenovela would be these days. But a condensed version where season end cliffhangers happen every 20 minutes. That’s the constant narrative peaking I was mentioning earlier. Continuously introducing “-No, I am your father”-esque reveals that make you constantly think “wait, what?!”
But telenovelas are associated with cliché, mediocre acting and mediocre writing. Streetwalker this is not that. This is a strong movie, with whole-hearted acting and a very well written story. Maybe what telenovelas strive to be.
The main theme
At first glance it seems that one of the main themes of the movie is a cautionary tale about the pursuit of love, and how it can act as a powerful and irrational guide for the characters’ actions, but the movie may have a different unexpected theme. (Spoilers from now on)
The main theme of the movie, if I had to choose one, would be: the evils of greed. Greed drives the characters to make bad choices that ruin their lives and relationships.
Each character has flaws, and it’s hard to point out a villain or a hero. Elena (Miroslava), out of greed, marries a rich person, Don Faustino, whom she does not seem to care for. She betrays her husband for Rodolfo, who lies and cheats on her. She ignored her sister’s warnings, with the utlimate goal of having everything she wants.
Maria eloped with Elena’s lover, which ended in a disaster. And utlimatelly, she risks her life to save her sister from Rodolfo’s scheme and acomes across as a person who cares about other people, including her street coworker. Because of her early downfall, she learned early on that family and friends are more important than anything else, even herself.
Rodolfo, out of greed, pretends to love Elena and leaves everything behind for her money. Rodolfo’s actions based on greed led him to a life of pretend-richness, violence and crime. He robbed people, bullied people, hit people and ultimately died while trying to take Elena’s money.
Is it a cautionary tale on greed? What do you think?
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