Joaquin
Murrieta had to be a significant Mexican folk hero, because Ricardo Montalbán
played him twice, once on Death Valley
Days and later in the TV movie Desperate
Mission. Murrieta was the inspiration for Zorro, but he came to a bad end.
Over one hundred fifty years after his death, filmmaker John J. Valadez
wrestles with the Robin Hood-figure’s life, times, and legacy in The Head of Joaquin Murrieta (trailer here), which premieres
on World Channel this Wednesday, as part of its celebration of Hispanic
Heritage Month.
In
1853, the highwayman and/or Mexican nationalist was gunned down by a band of
state-chartered vigilantes, who decapitated his head as proof. For years, they
used the head as a grotesque sideshow attraction, until it was allegedly lost
during the San Francisco earthquake. It was not the finest moment for
California’s justice system, or Murrieta.
Although
the head (preserved in a bell jar full of alcohol) was out of circulation, reports
of sightings still persisted into the current century. Obviously, it is prime documentary
fodder, but Valadez’s first attempt at a Murrieta doc fell through when his
attempts to find the head did not pan out. Then one day, a mysterious package
arrived at his home.
Valadez
is maddeningly vague about a lot of details. Yes, we understand he wants to
make a serious, socially conscious documentary, but when your film is
constructed around a head in a jar, you have to indulge viewers’ morbid
curiosity. There is no speculation as to where it came from, nor is there any
attempt to authenticate it. Call us square, but shouldn’t you tell the police
if you receive a severed head in the mail, even if it is from the 1850s?
In
fact, Valadez readily admits he has no way of knowing if this is the real
Murrieta or not, but he is content to accept it as a symbolic relic. Out of respect
for the historical figure and the dispossessed people he championed, Valadez
sets off on a trek to bury the head in his old stomping grounds, but he will
have to drive, because obviously. Along the way, we get plenty of less than
edifying American history. However, Valadez will also get an awkward reminder
from his own family history that many of the Mexicans who were forced off their
property by western expansionism had done the very same thing to the indigenous
populations a generation earlier.
You
have to give Valadez credit for keeping that part in the film, even though it
is clearly embarrassing to him. Although, we would like more hard information
about the head itself, the way he treats it on camera is quite tasteful and
shrewd. Usually, he just shows it concealed by the box it was shipped in, which
quickly takes on a sinister aura, sort of like the briefcase holding Marsellus
Wallace’s soul in Pulp Fiction.
