Leticia Neria PhD thesis - Research@StAndrews:FullText ...

y Chona, his workmate, who does not believe that the world can be changed by one
man, but who has a political and social sensitivity. Therefore, she tries to organise a
strike against the gangster and his henchmen in order to bring back workers’ rights.
Getting involved in a series of misunderstandings and unlucky circumstances, and by
getting help from unexpected places, Poncho and Chona manage to free the workers,
although they do not have a happy ending.
The film was produced independently, which allowed Arau the freedom to give
it the perspective he wanted. 26 In 1971 it was released with State support. El Águila
Descalza achieved great success not only with the general public but also with film
critics, and garnered three awards from the Mexican film academy. 27 José de la Colina
and García Riera declared respectively that this was ‘el primer gran film cómico
mexicano’ and ‘la mejor cinta cómica realizada hasta hoy en México’. 28 And this was
just the beginning of the successful career of Arau as a director. In his next film, the
blockbuster Calzonzin Inspector, he would develop further his humorous and critical
perspective on social and political issues.
Mecánica Nacional (1971). This film was directed and written by a more experienced
director, the exiled Spaniard, naturalised Mexican, Luis Alcoriza. He had worked with
Luis Buñuel and participated in writing the script of Buñuel’s famous film Los
olvidados (1950). Alcoriza started his career as director in 1961 and in 1963 his film
Tiburoneros proved that he was ‘a major talent, capable of making distinguished films
if given the opportunity’. 29 After making several earlier films, he found this opportunity
during Echeverría’s sexenio to make his masterpiece, Mecánica Nacional.
26 Treviño, ‘The new mexican cinema…’, p. 29.
27 Ramírez Berg, Cinema of Solitude… p. 49.
28 Cited by García Riera in Historia documental… 14: 1968-1969, p. 232.
29 Mora, Mexican Cinema… p. 107.
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