Macario
(Macario)

Hunger has many improbable surprises in store for the poor woodcutter Macario. He dreams of eating a roast turkey like those gracing the table of the rich on the Day of the Dead. He chooses to share the one his wife has stolen for him with Death rather than with the Devil or God. In return, he is given a healing potion that quickly leads to a miraculous but tragic betterment of his social standing. The leftist German author Bruno Traven, who emigrated to Mexico, had based a novel on a Grimm brothers’ fairy tale (Godfather Death in English), setting it in the 18th century. Gavaldón, however, cleverly muddles the tell-tale signs and sets his Macario at the crossroads of a fantastic fable, the picaresque and an ironic evocation of the class relations. The film was nominated for the Oscar of the Best Foreign Language Film but, as with Macario our woodcutter, the ending left the director with no desire to dance. JB