The Cinematheque

“Goes full throttle … Ninón Sevilla plays Violeta with irresistible verve … The hard-luck plot bursts with the moody poetry of alley views and bridge vistas.”

J. Hoberman, The New York Times

Onstage, Violeta (Ninón Sevilla) is the star of Cabaret Changó. When she dances, her power extends over the nightclub’s audience—drunks, musicians, gangsters, and onlookers—which shifts, from chaos to joy, with every transition she makes between tempos and traditions. Backstage, however, Violeta lives under the thumb of the violent and possessive Rodolfo—as do scores of local sex workers and dancers. When a newborn that Rodolfo claims isn’t his is abandoned, Violeta sacrifices her status and sets into motion a generational tale that mixes melodrama, amped-up noir lighting, and dancefloor storytelling that anticipates the intensified montage of Bob Fosse. Director Emilio Fernández, already a Palme d’Or winner (1944’s María Candelaria), together with cinematographer Gabriel Figueroa, turn the film’s cabaret confines into a dynamic space for sweeping camera moves. As a classic example of the cine de rumberas genre, Victims of Sin is a jolting rediscovery, mixing high-level craft and underworld action.

In Spanish and French with English subtitles

“Raw, beautiful, and riveting … Emilio Fernández was a visionary populist filmmaker who took the stuff of pulpy potboilers and created works of surprising depth.”

Bilge Ebiri, Vulture

“The cinematography, by the poetic virtuoso Gabriel Figueroa, is classically noir—all smoky, glistening shadows—but the film is in a kind of emotional 3D, flying right at your face and leaving you stunned.”

Imogen Sara Smith, The Criterion Collection