The introductory tableaux, which show the foundling heroine snacking on communion wafers, peeking up the robe of a church statue, staging a mock burning-at-the-stake, lowering her panties in front of boys, and being chastised for all of these by monastic guardians, set the tone of the entire movie: a determined naughtiness. (Arturo Ripstein, the director, is a surrealist, you realize.) This biographical map of Peccadillo and Punishment sheds no real psychological light on the heroine, who, when she grows up to be Isela Vega, wants so badly to be good. But it's hard, very hard, particularly when you look like Isela Vega and take a job as live-in housekeeper for an agnostic priest whose only vent for his emotions is his harmonica. What happens is both predictable and unpredictable: you can see it all coming, but you can't believe it will actually arrive. Ripstein's emotional aloofness keeps things from getting too far out of hand. With Mario Almada and Hilda Aguirre. (1983) — Duncan Shepherd
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