The Other Conquest (La Otra Conquista)
January 2008 Reviewed by: Rad Bennett Format: DVD	(all ratings out of 5): Overall Enjoyment Picture Quality Packaged Extras Sound Quality

In 1519 Hernando Cortés conquered Mexico, and his armies killed almost all of the country’s Aztec people. The survivors lost everything, including their religion. This striking film begins in 1520, after most of the pillaging had died down. In the opening scenes we meet its main character, Topiltzin, an Aztec artist who chronicles his people’s history. To keep from being killed in a temple massacre he has hidden under a corpse. Next we see him painting pictures of the desecrated temple and its dead defenders from the outside.

Later, a small band of Spanish soldiers intrude on an underground Aztec ritual, and Topiltzin is knocked unconscious and captured. He is taken to Cortés (Iñaki Aierra) for judgment, but because he is an illegitimate son of the fabled Aztec leader Montezuma, his life is spared. It doesn’t hurt that his half sister (Elpidia Carrillo) lives in the Cortés palace and that the Spanish conquistador has fallen in love with her. Conditions of Topiltzin’s freedom are that his name be changed to Tomas, abandon his native language for Spanish, and receive 30 lashes. He ends up at a monastery where he comes into contact with a priest, Fray Diego (Jose Carlos Rodriguez). The two men influence each other in profound ways. Topiltzin adopts the Virgin Mary, but not as the mother of Jesus; he makes her a replacement for Tonantzin, his sun goddess. Friar Diego at first looks on Topiltzin’s religion with scorn, but as time goes on, a bit of the Aztec faith melds into his own.

This was a very low-budget film, so director and writer Salvator Carrasco decided to encapsulate the assimilation of one faith by another in the interaction of two characters, Topiltzin and Friar Diego. Yes, it is a history film, but also a treatise on tolerance and how much alike we are. The last words in the movie are "One God," and I believe what is meant is that the Aztec and Christian higher powers are the same, just fleshed out in different guises and provided with specific mythologies.

The movie was the highest-grossing Mexican film ever, but due to poor marketing strategy, it did not do so well in the US. This DVD should make it available to a wider audience so that it can have the exposure and recognition it deserves. It is beautifully, if cheaply, shot. Colors are rich and bold in the first half, deliberately softer in the second. There are many cinematically striking moments. The movie was made over period of seven years, so it is not surprising that the DVD picture varies. Some scenes are as sharp as a tack, others are softer, even a little fuzzy at times, but crisp and clear wins out. The sound is rich and full, the dialogue is particularly good, never having a microphone sound, and the music sounds as good as most audio recordings. According to Carrasco on the commentary track, the movie’s soundtrack is in the Aztec preferred language, Nahuatl, and Spanish. Both are subtitled the same way, so it is inevitable that American audiences are going to miss much of the nuance the film delivers through the use of two languages. The yellow electronic subtitles are easy to read, and the speeches slow enough that one can easily follow.

Carrasco provides a really interesting commentary. It’s obvious that he is reading from a script, but better that than some of these rambling, embarrassing on-the-spot commentaries. This one delivers a lot of information on how the film was made as well as the director’s view of what happened historically. Other extras include over a dozen deleted scenes, a very short production featurette, and trailers.

One hopes that this colorful, intense, spiritual epic gets more play now that it is on DVD. The home-video producers have done their best; all you need to do now is rent or buy it.

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