Chronicle of a death foretold. - An Interpretation

Cronaca di una morte annunciata (original title) Dir:
Francesco Rosi Seen at the Jerusalem Cinemateque Tue 5th Jan 2016

Not having read the book I can’t say how close this movie sticks to the story by the great author, Gabriel Garcia Marques. The scenes in this movie are works of art, joined together and put in a sequence that gradually reveals a multitude of plots all woven into one. Long after seeing the movie, the scenes, of their own accord come back into my mind, like a tune that once heard is never forgotten, demanding to be considered the main plot.

A man, on the prow of a river boat looks at the approaching land. The scene, without words, only the thudding motor of the boat, feint sounds of voices coming from the land, the brilliant white of an elegant mansion, contrasting with the dark gold of the water and a glimpse of narrow alley ways opening on to a wide plaza, hints to us that dramatic events, now memories, are going to be revealed here.

Even now, more than a week since seeing the movie, I ask myself, what I can learn from this tragic story.

The town’s folk have just celebrated a fairy tale marriage of a young woman. Immediately her prince like husband reveals her lost virginity on her marriage bed and returns her to her mother as spoilt property.

The lesson I learnt from this movie is that a woman whose honor has been taken away has the right to name the price for its recovery. Her price is the life of the most popular young man in town, full of the joy of life and hope in the future. It doesn’t matter whether it really was he who had robbed her of her virginity. The fact is that a fallen woman is dangerous; she can name the price of her lost honor. She chooses him to be the sacrifice, because he is worthy.

He is killed just like a sacrifice, stabbed to death in the town’s main square, while all the people of the town, his friends look on.

I wouldn’t have come to this conclusion had I continued, like most viewers, I suppose, to dwell on the mystery of whether it was really he who had taken away her virginity. If it wasn’t him, then who was the true defiler? Why didn’t she give him up to be murdered? Was she protecting someone? Who was she protecting? Was it the doctor? Or was it someone in her immediate family? Maybe even her father or one of her brothers?