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HEROD'S
LAW EXPLAINS A BASIC PRINCIPLE OF POLITICS
Directed by Luis Estrada, Herod's
Law (La Ley de Herodes) is a satirical tale that
takes place (and was filmed) in the desert town of San Pedro
de los Saguaros, México, where angry non-Spanish-speaking
Indian residents, according to the fable, lynched three corrupt
mayors from 1944 to 1949. Accordingly, López (played
by Pedro Armendárez, Jr.), a provincial official in
the ruling political party appoints junkyard custodian Juan
Vargas (played by Damián Alcázar), a naïve
party member, to serve as mayor, hoping that he will put the
lid on the problems of the one hundred or so villagers so that
there will be no impediment to his ambition to be appointed
the next governor of the state (presumably Sonora, in view
of the omnipresent giant Saguaro cactus). In the beginning,
Mayor Vargas is eager to transform the village, following the
slogan of his party--modernization and social justice. Lacking
a budget to improve the village, his idealistic words prove
empty, and Dr. Morales (played by Eduardo López Rojas)
of the opposition party threatens to defeat him in the next
election if he fails to shut down the local brothel, operated
by Doña Lupe (played by Isela Vega). Even the village
priest (played by Guillermo Gil) tries to shake him down, so
he returns to his patron, López, for advice. The advice
is to follow "Herod's Law," namely, "Fuck or
be fucked!" That is, López tells Vargas to extort
taxes, to bribe lawbreakers (armed with a book containing the
laws of México), and to enforce his authority with a
gun. When Vargas returns to the small village, he arranges
a banquet for the local leaders; at the end of the meal, he
announces disingenuously that he will bring electricity to
San Pedro de los Saguaros, having hired a gringo (played by
Alex Cox), a supposed American engineer. Soon, he is collecting
a lot of money in bribes and sleeping with the women in the
local brothel.
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When
he tries to collect an excessive amount of money from the
townspeople, in cash or in kind, Dr. Morales
goes to see López to complain. While Dr. Morales is
away, Vargas tries to extort so much money from Doña
Lupe that she recruits a bodyguard, who roughs up Vargas; later
that night, Vargas returns to shoot both of them in cold blood.
After the bodies are discovered, Vargas coerces townspeople
into testifying that Dr. Morales hired the town drunk to kill
Doña Lupe and her bodyguard. However,
Vargas orders Dr. Morales to leave town, so he returns
to López to report that the town is in chaos. López,
who tried to shoot his rival for the governorship of the
state, then goes to the town. However, the ruling party
is evidently delighted when Vargas kills him shortly after
his arrival. In the epilog, Vargas is addressing the Congress
in México City as a delegate. A standing ovation
greets his proposal for the party to do what he proposed
for himself in San Pedro de los Saguaros--to stay in power
indefinitely. When Herod's Law tried
to debut in México in 1999, the government tried
to stop the film from being shows in cinemas, believing
that the story vilified the ruling Partido Revolucionario
Institucional (PRI). Although the film could be viewed
as a mere comical satire, voters clearly got the hint,
and Vicente Fox of the opposition Partido Acción
Nacional was elected president of México in the
year 2000, thereby ending seventy-one years of PRI rule.
More profoundly, there is perhaps a serendipitous insight:
Politicians who are less than erudite are more likely to
use crude methods to cling to power, a theory that could
also be tested north of the Río Grande. Accordingly,
the Political Film Society has nominated Herod's
Law for an award as this year's best film
promoting democracy as well as best film exposé of
2003. MH
OTHER
FILMS TO WATCH
The Legend of Suriyothai chronicles
Thailand's equivalent of Queen Elizabeth, a contemporary. Manito depicts
the life of Dominicans in New York City. Whale
Rider shows how a female became Maori chief.
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