By Jeffrey Sipe and Nina Rodriguez
“Las Flores de la Noche,” a documentary by Mexican directors Eduardo Esquivel and Omar Robles, opens with recounting a legend from the Mexican War of Independence when the indigenous people of Mezcala, in the state of Jalisco, bravely battled the Spanish army. According to the legend, a female warrior regularly descended from the mountains to kill Spanish soldiers in their sleep. Eventually apprehended and sentenced to be burned alive, when her clothing is removed for the execution, the Spanish discover that she is a man dressed as a woman.
Unfortunately, the legend is cast aside once it’s used to preface this 2020 documentary that focuses on the lives of four transvestites in a town of some 6,000 inhabitants. The initial assumption of the viewer—this viewer, anyway—may be that the legend underlies what appears to be a general acceptance of the town’s tiny group of cross-dressing residents. That’s not quite the case. Although never overtly threatened by their fellow residents of Mezcala, they are occasionally the targets of verbal abuse. The two directors have crafted a work that focuses on the interpersonal relationships of the four main characters and not the social opprobrium that’s only occasionally cast their way. The film is more of an exposition of the four main characters and their needs, their desires, their self-respect, and their own essence.
Uriel, the seemingly most conventional of the four, begins to reject his own transvestism after what he believes was an encounter with God: “I consider myself a lustful, homosexual, perverted, vain, and depressive person,” he tells a church gathering. Despite coming out in such a negative way and insisting that he wants to engage only in “manly things,” Uriel continues his close relationships with Violete, Dulcey, and Alexa, who at one point travel to a nearby town for a soccer match with a local team—and win.
“Las Flores de la Noche” is not an advocacy film in the normal sense of the term. There are no political motivations behind the characters’ behavior nor in the filmmaking itself for that matter. Instead, the film documents the daily lives—both practical and emotional—of these four main characters who inherently, though not always overtly, struggle with the acceptance of their own sexuality and gender identification in an environment that offers contradictorily acceptance and rejection.
What does occur in the course of the film’s 85 minutes is that the audience inevitably comes to embrace the honesty and courage of its protagonists in the face of serious barriers. They pick raspberries for money, organize a drag show, compose their own soccer team, and painstakingly treat their bodies to maximize an image of femininity. In some ways, “Las Flores de la Noche” is just a snapshot of small-town life in Mexico focusing on four residents whose concerns outside the mainstream belie the very mainstream concerns of all of us: self-acceptance, love, friendship, and internal peace. In other words, we’re all in this together, no matter who you are or who you choose to love.
To celebrate this message and the great diversity and creativity in Mexican cinema in general, a free outdoor screening of “Las Flores de la Noche” will mark the two year anniversary of independent movie theater Compartimento Cinematográfico in San Miguel this Saturday, November 5, with the filmmakers in attendance. Awarded Best Mexican Feature Documentary at GIFF’s pandemic edition, the film hasn’t had a commercial release yet and forms part of GIFF’s “Más Cine Mexicano, por favor” showcase currently traveling the country.
