Antonieta

Antonieta is a 1982 film by Spanish director Carlos Saura, starring Isabelle Adjani and Hanna Schygulla. The film, a Mexican-Spanish French co production, was based on a novel by Andrés Henestrosa. The plot centers on the life of Antonieta Rivas Mercado, a Mexican writer who killed herself inside Paris' Notre Dame in 1931. Plot Anna, a modern day Parisian psychologist, is researching the cases of women who committed suicide in the 20th Century. She becomes fascinated by the story of Antonieta Rivas Mercado, a Mexican writer and social activist who committed suicide inside Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. To find more about Antonieta's story, Anna travels to Mexico and interviews people who knew her. She receives her first clues about Antonieta's life from Juana, a Mexican librarian who frames the life of Antonieta Rivas Mercado within a stormy period of Mexico's history, the political turmoil of the 1910s-1920s. Antonieta's personal life was as dark and dramatic as that of her era. She was the daughter of a famous architect and as a child she posed for the golden angel atop the famous Column of Independence in Mexico City. Vargas, a poet, now a middle-aged man, recounts for Ana the life of Antonieta when he met her and they were friends. The story moves back and forth between present and past.