La calle de la amargura

In this colourful black-and-white film, the world of Mexican wrestlers comes together with that of prostitution. In Mexico City, a pair of twin midgets work as miniluchadores, mascots for professional wrestlers. The two beat their wives, but are in turn exploited by their bosses, who have nicknames like Death and AK-47.
This chain of exploitation that can’t be broken also affects two ageing prostitutes who have less and less work. One of them exploits her mentally feeble mother, who has to beg in the street. The other has to cope with her husband, who likes to dress up in her clothes and has clandestine homosexual encounters.
Mexican veteran Arturo Ripstein (1943), whose wife Paz Alicia Garcíadiego wrote the screenplay, based the film on a true incident. Like his mentor Luis Buñuel, he sketches with great compassion and without sentiment how poverty has a pernicious effect on people’s behaviour.