FILM REVIEWS : Tribute to Legendary Landeta

The main event, and certainly the spiritual center, of the two-day “Speak For Myself: Mexicana/Chicana/Latina Filmmaking” conference that began Friday at UC Irvine had to be Matilde Landeta’s “La Negra Angustias.”

Released in 1949, the film is considered the first full-length Mexican feature with a rigid feminist backbone. “La Negra Angustias” (or “Black Anguish”) follows a fiery heroine as she becomes a mythical revolutionary in the same constellation as Emiliano Zapata. Feverish, clumsy and at times oddly brutal (at one point, a rapist is castrated to a chorus of laughter), it is clearly the work of a true believer who understands the irony of politics.

Landeta’s importance to Latina directors was described in Patricia Diaz’s documentary, “My Filmmaking, My Life: Matilde Landeta.” The 30-minute film chronicles her life and the impact of her work in spare and telling ways. Mexican film critics and other female directors talk about Landeta, but the movie is most revealing when she talks about herself.

An intelligent and amusing woman who is now almost 80, Landeta recalls all the problems she encountered trying to start a career in “this male-dominated industry.” Proud but not boastful, she relates how she turned to small things to underscore the big--developing, for instance, an authoritative voice so the cast and crew, accustomed to taking their orders from men, would follow her direction.

“Chicana,” a 22-minute film by Sylvia Morales (who, by the way, directed Los Lobos’ “A Time to Dance” video), attempts to comprehensively portray the role of Latinas through history. There’s a burst of wit at the start but that soon gives way to feminist didactics. No matter how well-crafted this short is, it still stumbles under the weight of preachiness.