Zapata: El sueño de un héroe
Encyclopedia
Zapata: El sueño del héroe, (in English: Zapata: The dream of a hero) also titled simply Zapata, is a Mexican
motion picture first released in 2004.
This fictionalized portrayal of Emiliano Zapata
as an Indigenous Mexican
shaman, directed by Alfonso Arau
, was reportedly the most expensive Mexican movie ever produced, with a massive ad campaign, and the largest ever opening in the nation's history. Unusual in the Mexican film industry, Zapata was financed independently.
The main character was played by Alejandro Fernández
(singer, and casual actor) son of Vicente Fernández
(mostly known for his "charro" music and "humorous-macho" movie roles in the late 60s). Infested with non-sense script lines such as, "Un soldado sin rifle, es como un taco sin tortilla" or "A soldier without a rifle is like a taco without a tortilla", this movie was panned by the critics and audiences alike. Against all expectations, Alejandro Fernández didn't sing during the movie while mounting a horse (a family icon for the Fernandez's). Also starring telenovela
actress and singer Lucero, and an array of Televisa
(Main Mexican Pop-culture Channel in alliance with Univision
) artists such as Patricia Velásquez
and Jaime Camil
, the movie was panned by critics, due to continuity issues, as well as concerns about the portrayal of Zapata, along with some rumors that he was of the homosexual persuasion plus semi-nudes of historical figures. Although many of the marketing and promotional ideas utilised in the release of the film are "revolutionary" in Mexico, after its opening day, the movie performed poorly in movie theatres, far below expectations, and, 2004, had yet to find any distributors outside of Latin America
. Ironically, Alfonso Arau's expectations were to receive the Oscar and publicly stated, "If filmmakers didn't think about the Academy Awards, we wouldn't know what we're doing".
Zapata made its U.S.
debut at the Santa Fe Film Festival on December 3, 2004 at the Center for Contemporary Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico
. There were some rumors that Zapata's set design and some of its props were also used for "Amor Real
", a major Mexican soap opera project (since they are both in the same style), however these rumors were proved false, since a lot of the props from "Amor Real" were actually recycled in another project (this time in a kid-soap style) called: "Amy, La Niña De La Mochila Azul", in which these sets were merely painted in bright colors to mimic a beach-side village, which couldn't have been done since the props from Zapata were ruins and computer generated graphics.
(Justo Martínez), the presidency of Francisco I. Madero
, the military revolt of Victoriano Huerta
(Jesús Ochoa
), the Convention of Generals and, finally, the death of Zapata (Alejandro Fernández
), already in the constitutionalist stage of Venustiano Carranza
. The film does not try to be a chair of history but a fable that obtains the identification of the spectators with the hero, through the successive confrontation of the protagonist with the power, represented in the antagonistic figure of Victoriano Huerta. In it, Emiliano Zapata
appears like predestining, "the signal" in his chest, the mark or spot with the form of a little hand is the sign that identifies him as "the one" by the Huehuetlatolli (the heirs of the tradition) to be their guide. Thus, we see the birth of Emiliano, where he is recognized like the possible leader of his town. Zapata will have to break with his vision of the "real reality" and to enter in that other magical knowledge of the Mexican tradition and its inscrutable religious "sincretismo".
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
motion picture first released in 2004.
This fictionalized portrayal of Emiliano Zapata
Emiliano Zapata
Emiliano Zapata Salazar was a leading figure in the Mexican Revolution, which broke out in 1910, and which was initially directed against the president Porfirio Díaz. He formed and commanded an important revolutionary force, the Liberation Army of the South, during the Mexican Revolution...
as an Indigenous Mexican
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
shaman, directed by Alfonso Arau
Alfonso Arau
-Biography:Arau was born in Mexico City, the son of a doctor. He directed the films Zapata: The Dream of a Hero, Like Water for Chocolate , A Walk in the Clouds with Keanu Reeves and Anthony Quinn, and the Hallmark Hall of Fame production A Painted House, adapted from the John Grisham novel of the...
, was reportedly the most expensive Mexican movie ever produced, with a massive ad campaign, and the largest ever opening in the nation's history. Unusual in the Mexican film industry, Zapata was financed independently.
The main character was played by Alejandro Fernández
Alejandro Fernández
Alejandro Fernández is a Mexican singer. Nicknamed as "El Potrillo" by the media and his fans, he has sold over 20 million albums worldwide. Alejandro is the son of the ranchera singer Vicente Fernández. He originally specialized in traditional, earthy forms of Mexican folk music, such as...
(singer, and casual actor) son of Vicente Fernández
Vicente Fernández
Vicente Fernández Gómez is a Mexican singer, producer and actor. Known as Chente or El rey de la canción ranchera throughout the Latin world, Vicente Fernández, who started his career singing for tips on the street, has become a cultural icon, recording more than 50 albums and contributing to...
(mostly known for his "charro" music and "humorous-macho" movie roles in the late 60s). Infested with non-sense script lines such as, "Un soldado sin rifle, es como un taco sin tortilla" or "A soldier without a rifle is like a taco without a tortilla", this movie was panned by the critics and audiences alike. Against all expectations, Alejandro Fernández didn't sing during the movie while mounting a horse (a family icon for the Fernandez's). Also starring telenovela
Telenovela
A telenovela is a limited-run serial dramatic programming popular in Latin American, Portuguese, and Spanish television programming. The word combines tele, short for televisión or televisão , and novela, a Spanish or Portuguese word for "novel"...
actress and singer Lucero, and an array of Televisa
Televisa
Televisa is a Mexican multimedia conglomerate, the largest mass media company in Latin America and in the Spanish-speaking world. It is a major international entertainment business, with much of its programming airing in the United States on Univision, with which it has an exclusive contract...
(Main Mexican Pop-culture Channel in alliance with Univision
Univision
Univision is a Spanish-language television network in the United States. It has the largest audience of Spanish language television viewers according to Nielsen ratings. Randy Falco, COO, has been in charge of the company since the departure of Univision Communications president and CEO Joe Uva...
) artists such as Patricia Velásquez
Patricia Velásquez
Patricia Carola Velásquez Semprún is a Venezuelan actress and fashion model. She is often considered to be the first Latin supermodel.-Early life:...
and Jaime Camil
Jaime Camil
Jaime Federico Said Camil de Saldaña da Gama is a Mexican actor, singer and host.-Biography:Born in Mexico City, Mexico, Camil is the son of Jaime Camil Garza, a very successful Mexican businessman, and Cecilia Saldaña Da Gama, a Brazilian singer...
, the movie was panned by critics, due to continuity issues, as well as concerns about the portrayal of Zapata, along with some rumors that he was of the homosexual persuasion plus semi-nudes of historical figures. Although many of the marketing and promotional ideas utilised in the release of the film are "revolutionary" in Mexico, after its opening day, the movie performed poorly in movie theatres, far below expectations, and, 2004, had yet to find any distributors outside of Latin America
Latin America
Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...
. Ironically, Alfonso Arau's expectations were to receive the Oscar and publicly stated, "If filmmakers didn't think about the Academy Awards, we wouldn't know what we're doing".
Zapata made its U.S.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
debut at the Santa Fe Film Festival on December 3, 2004 at the Center for Contemporary Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Santa Fe is the capital of the U.S. state of New Mexico. It is the fourth-largest city in the state and is the seat of . Santa Fe had a population of 67,947 in the 2010 census...
. There were some rumors that Zapata's set design and some of its props were also used for "Amor Real
Amor real
Amor real is a Mexican telenovela, which was produced and broadcast by Televisa in 2003. Amor Real is a historical telenovela set in the Mexican post-independence period of the mid-19th century. It also aired on Univision in the United States in 2004 and on REN TV in Russia...
", a major Mexican soap opera project (since they are both in the same style), however these rumors were proved false, since a lot of the props from "Amor Real" were actually recycled in another project (this time in a kid-soap style) called: "Amy, La Niña De La Mochila Azul", in which these sets were merely painted in bright colors to mimic a beach-side village, which couldn't have been done since the props from Zapata were ruins and computer generated graphics.
Plot
The film happens in the last quarter of the 19th century and the first nineteen years of the twentieth, during the dictatorship of Porfirio DíazPorfirio Díaz
José de la Cruz Porfirio Díaz Mori was a Mexican-American War volunteer and French intervention hero, an accomplished general and the President of Mexico continuously from 1876 to 1911, with the exception of a brief term in 1876 when he left Juan N...
(Justo Martínez), the presidency of Francisco I. Madero
Francisco I. Madero
Francisco Ignacio Madero González was a politician, writer and revolutionary who served as President of Mexico from 1911 to 1913. As a respectable upper-class politician, he supplied a center around which opposition to the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz could coalesce...
, the military revolt of Victoriano Huerta
Victoriano Huerta
José Victoriano Huerta Márquez was a Mexican military officer and president of Mexico. Huerta's supporters were known as Huertistas during the Mexican Revolution...
(Jesús Ochoa
Jesús Ochoa
Jesús Ochoa is a Mexican soccer player who currently plays for Los Angeles Blues 23 in the USL Premier Development League.-Career:Ochoa moved to the United States at a young age and was raised in Riverside, California...
), the Convention of Generals and, finally, the death of Zapata (Alejandro Fernández
Alejandro Fernández
Alejandro Fernández is a Mexican singer. Nicknamed as "El Potrillo" by the media and his fans, he has sold over 20 million albums worldwide. Alejandro is the son of the ranchera singer Vicente Fernández. He originally specialized in traditional, earthy forms of Mexican folk music, such as...
), already in the constitutionalist stage of Venustiano Carranza
Venustiano Carranza
Venustiano Carranza de la Garza, was one of the leaders of the Mexican Revolution. He ultimately became President of Mexico following the overthrow of the dictatorial Huerta regime in the summer of 1914 and during his administration the current constitution of Mexico was drafted...
. The film does not try to be a chair of history but a fable that obtains the identification of the spectators with the hero, through the successive confrontation of the protagonist with the power, represented in the antagonistic figure of Victoriano Huerta. In it, Emiliano Zapata
Emiliano Zapata
Emiliano Zapata Salazar was a leading figure in the Mexican Revolution, which broke out in 1910, and which was initially directed against the president Porfirio Díaz. He formed and commanded an important revolutionary force, the Liberation Army of the South, during the Mexican Revolution...
appears like predestining, "the signal" in his chest, the mark or spot with the form of a little hand is the sign that identifies him as "the one" by the Huehuetlatolli (the heirs of the tradition) to be their guide. Thus, we see the birth of Emiliano, where he is recognized like the possible leader of his town. Zapata will have to break with his vision of the "real reality" and to enter in that other magical knowledge of the Mexican tradition and its inscrutable religious "sincretismo".
Cast (in credits order)
- Patricia VelásquezPatricia VelásquezPatricia Carola Velásquez Semprún is a Venezuelan actress and fashion model. She is often considered to be the first Latin supermodel.-Early life:...
as Josefa - Lucero as Esperanza
- Jesús Ochoa as Victoriano Huerta
- Jaime CamilJaime CamilJaime Federico Said Camil de Saldaña da Gama is a Mexican actor, singer and host.-Biography:Born in Mexico City, Mexico, Camil is the son of Jaime Camil Garza, a very successful Mexican businessman, and Cecilia Saldaña Da Gama, a Brazilian singer...
as Eufemio - Soledad Ruiz as Juana Lucia
- Arturo BeristáinArturo BeristainArturo Beristain is a retired Mexican professional wrestler, or Luchador in Spanish, who currently works as a wrestling trainer at the Mexican professional wrestling promotion Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre's gym in Mexico City, Mexico...
as González - Julio Bracho as Guajardo
- Alberto EstrellaAlberto EstrellaAlberto Rodríguez Estrella is a Mexican actor. He has appeared in over 90 films and television shows since 1986. He starred in the film The Queen of the Night, which was entered into the 1994 Cannes Film Festival...
as Martinez - José Luis Cruz
- Ángeles Cruz
- Evangelina Sosa as Azucena
- Angélica AragónAngélica AragónAngélica Aragón is a Mexican actress of telenovelas and such films as Dune, A Walk in the Clouds, Bella, Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights, Vivir un poco, Mirada de mujer, Novia que te vea, and the blockbuster film Sexo, pudor y lágrimas.-Early life:Aragón was born Angélica Espinoza Stransky in Mexico...
as Mesera 1 - Carmen Salinas as Mesera 2
- Blanca Tenario as Mesera 3
- Fernando Becerril
- Juan Peláez
- Miguel Couturier as Limantour
- Justo Martínez as Porfirio Díaz
- Gerardo Martínez as De la O
- Rafael Cortés as Arturo
- Alejandro Calva as Gilgerdo Magaña
- Omar Sánchez as Otilio Montaña
- Javier Escobar as Joaquin
- Eduardo Ocaña as Pablo
- Isi Rojano as Sobrina
- Marcial Alejandro as Trovador
- Francisco Badillo as Zapatista 1
- Raymundo Ibarra as Zapatista 2
- Mayolival Del Monte as Mujer Zapatista
- Luis Enrique Parra as Francisco Villa
- Sharmel Altamirano
- Alejandra Palacios
- Jaime Estrada as Gabriel Zapata
- Angélica Lara as Madre de Zapata
- Rafael VelascoRafael VelascoRafael Velasco was an Italian Mexican film/television actor. He participated in the Cinema of Mexico from 1980 to 2004.-Biography:...
as Don Lázaro - César ValdézCésar ValdezCésar Miguel Valdez is a Dominican professional baseball pitcher who is a free agent.-Arizona Diamondbacks:...
as Sargento - Julian Sedgwick as USA Ambassador
- Paulino Hemmer as Secretario de Huerta
- Gerardo Pérez
- Alejandro FernándezAlejandro FernándezAlejandro Fernández is a Mexican singer. Nicknamed as "El Potrillo" by the media and his fans, he has sold over 20 million albums worldwide. Alejandro is the son of the ranchera singer Vicente Fernández. He originally specialized in traditional, earthy forms of Mexican folk music, such as...
as Emiliano Zapata - Omar Espino as Eufemio Niño
- Paola Ayala as Josefa Niña
- José Antonio Gutiérrez as Mensajero Federal
- Eleno Guzmán as Soldado
- Evangelina Martínez as Vieja
- José María Negri as Sacerdote
- Godofredo Villegas as Maestro de Ceremonias
- Brenda Angulo as Prostituta
- Carla Hernández as Prostituta
- Tony Helling as Prostituta
- Liliana Lago as Prostituta
- Juana Ponce as Prostituta
- Maria Guadalupe Hernández as Prostituta
- Gabriela Tavela as Ama de llaves
- Alfonso Garza as Marido celoso
- Nayeli Márquez as Esposa Infiel
- Luis Rubiera as Asistante de Gonzalez
- Eduardo Francisco Galeano as Asistante de Gonzalez