The Eternal Feminine

Natalia Beristáin's 2017 Mexican film tells the life of the writer Rosario Castellanos by moving between two periods. In the early fifties she is a young student trying to make herself heard in a university world run by men; in later years she becomes one of the most important women writers in Mexican literature while her marriage to Ricardo Guerra consumes her. The film draws on their correspondence and takes Castellanos's thinking on feminism, motherhood and womanhood directly from her own writing. It does not construct an inspiring portrait of an author; it shows instead what it is to spend an intelligence and a body of work inside a relationship. Karina Gidi and Tessa Ía play the character's two ages. Who it's for: viewers who like literary biography and Latin American cinema. Who it's not for: anyone who dislikes a focus on the life rather than the work; the film puts the marriage at the centre.