The Important Man

Ismael Rodriguez's 1961 Mexican film is set in a village in Oaxaca and stars Toshiro Mifune. He plays a man obsessed with being chosen as the organiser of the village festival, its most prestigious role, and willing to spend his wife and family to get there. Not knowing Spanish, Mifune memorised his lines phonetically; his voice was dubbed by the Mexican actor Narciso Busquets. The subject is an economy of standing. In the village respect is something that can be bought, the character knows it, and the story shows exactly what the attempt to buy it costs. It was adapted from a novel by Rogelio Barriga Rivas. It won the foreign film award at the Golden Globes and was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 34th Academy Awards, the second Mexican film nominated in that category after Macario. Who it's for: anyone curious about the golden age of Mexican cinema and about Mifune in an unlikely role. Who it's not for: viewers who would find a Japanese actor playing an Indigenous Mexican man troubling in the terms of current debates about representation.