Combining elements of Film Noir and the Western genre with a realist twist, El Violin retells a historically-based incident and makes universal statements about power and resistance.

During a peasant revolt in Mexico in the 1970s the aptly named Plutarco is head of three generations of the Hidalgo family. Venerated as a skilled traditional violinist despite having lost his right hand, he plays with a bow bound to the stump and works as an itinerant musician with his guitar-playing son Genaro and grandson Lucio, who passes round the hat at performances. Their activities provide an ideal cover for Genaro’s activities as a leading member of a resistance group. When Genaro is interrupted by police during negotiations in town the family escapes, abandoning a cache of weapons. In their absence the village has been attacked, many of the villagers scattered or killed, and the militia is ensconced in temporary headquarters. Whilst surviving villagers camp out in the hills, Genaro and his band plot to retrieve the weapons but Plutarco embarks on a secret scheme of his own, which involves buying a mule from an extortionate landlord and visiting the village on a daily basis to entertain the music-loving commander.

Director Francisco Vargas was active in promoting Mexican traditional music through radio and worked as director of photography on several short films since 1997. In this remarkable feature debut he shows an intrinsic understanding of filmic possibilities. Black and white photography complements slowly developing events in a deceptively simple story and the use of raw-sounding music and folk ballads adds authenticity, aided by the use of non-professional actors, particularly in the lead role of Plutarco.

The one-handed octogenarian Don Angel Tavira, born in Guerrero where the film was shot, gives a strong naturalistic performance which won him the accolade of best actor in the ‘Un Certain Regard’ section at Cannes. Dagoberto Gama is convincing in the contrasting role of cruel and deceitful commander.

The shock of the torture and rape scene at the start establishes context and a lingering apprehension in later narrative developments. Its power increased by the positioning of characters, the use of a dark screen and sounds of muted whimpering, it justifies the risks and sacrifices the rebels subsequently undergo. A combination of slow shots of the itinerant father and son in the shabby pueblo whilst the youngster takes round the hat and the meanderings by mule across the remote countryside is varied by sudden attacks and campfire conversations between grandfather and grandson. The conversations establish relationships, especially in the scene of campfire story-telling involving the old man and the boy, and feudal nature of exchanges between the ‘padron’ and his tenant in the negotiations for the mule.

Foregrounding the landscape, the camera reminds us that the dispute is about seizure and occupation of territory, as do the ballads’ subject-matter – the nobility of resistance. The face of the old man is photographed to emphasise both suffering and wisdom. Panning shots of dirty homeless children living in the open flanked by strong matriarchs underline the pathos of the peasant’s situation.

The effect of music to ‘soothe the savage breast’, is a cliché of second world war films used to good effect, and the frequency with which string instrument cases have been used for smuggling weapons in such films immediately sets up expectations. Wrapped hand-guns passed to the old man at a road-side check-point, as ‘tacos for your journey’ add to the suspense of the final climactic scene where the old man is placed in an acute dilemma. His final words: ‘Now the music stops.’ carry a mood-changing resonance. The use of the same triangular bundle in the final scene, carried by the children, is masterly in its statement about heritage. An incident towards the end of the film echoes a scene in Shakespeare’s Macbeth with similarly poignant effect.

Recalling films about peasant oppression by directors as diverse as Ken Loach, Luis Bunuel and Zhang Yimou, El Violin examines both the results of abuse of power and the persistence of memory as motivation.