The movie is about the myth of Zapata, not a biography or a history tale. The myth was created after his death and seems to be growing in the passing of the years. I will cited only two movement that idealize him. Cesar Chavez choose it as one of his heroes and the EZLN movement also, despite they fought isn't in the original zapatista territory. But the beauty of this allegory created by Arrau isn't of easy understanding of the great public. The film made of Zapata a predesignated with a mision in his life, a mision that obliged him to fight against injustice. His objective is against the power man (always represented by Huerta, Gonzalez and Gallardo representing a not his real life papers), his objective is to give some to the people that doesn't have any, people identified plenty with the mother land. So he rise as symbol of agrarian fights in all epoques and he is considered as descendant of a aztec divinity, Quetzalcoatl and also from the aztec emperors, Cuauhtemoc in special. Visually, the film is a beauty, the instrumental music splendid and the scenography always in the ruins of a Hacienda (Coahuixtla) fantastic. A truly masterpiece.
Review of Zapata - El sueño del héroe
