Eréndira ikikunari, a 2006 release available on DVD from Facets Video, is the story of a woman warrior fighting on behalf of her embattled people. Almost anyone watching it will think of another heroine with a similar history: Joan of Arc, whose career has inspired a whole list of movies. But the best of those pictures – The Passion of Joan of Arc (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1928) and Trial of Joan Arc (Robert Bresson, 1962) – begin where Joan's military exploits leave off, dealing only with the last days of her life. By contrast, Eréndira ikikunari visualizes the title character's daring adventures with epic sweep and action-movie zest. In another interesting choice, writer-director Juan Roberto Mora Catlett sets forth the 16th-century tale in a stylized, almost ritualized manner that underscores Eréndira's status as a figure of myth and folklore among Mexico's indigenous Purépecha people (sometimes called the P'urhépecha or Purehpecha people) to this day.

Mora's movie, also known as Eréndira la indomable, mustn't be confused with the surrealistic Eréndira written by Gabriel García Márquez and directed by Ruy Guerra, a French-Mexican-West German production of 1983. The screenplay of Eréndira ikikunari is based on two historical sources – a legend that's been passed down orally by Purépechans for the past 500 years, and a 16th-century codex known as the Relación de Michoacán, which tells the Purépechans' story from the standpoint of the Spaniards who conquered and decimated their culture. The film's anthropological approach also comes through in the dialogue, which is spoken in the Purépecha language with bits of 16th-century Spanish and Latin where appropriate. At its most kinetic moments the picture superficially recalls Mel Gibson's boisterous Apocalypto, but its seriousness of purpose goes way beyond a Hollywood exoticism trip.

Eréndira ikikunari begins with dark prophecies of invasion, conquest, and destruction at the hands of a mysterious enemy. The predictions come true when Spanish conquistadors barge into the Purépechans' territory, stealing the royal treasure of Lord Tangaxoan and knocking the stone gods of Michoacán to smithereens. After failing in his attempt to hide from the invaders, Lord Tangaxoan submits to their superior force and promises no resistance to their rule. Spurred by the example of tribal women who keep protesting when the cowardly men have stopped, young Eréndira – fresh from her wedding to Nanuma, a warrior with a knack for espionage – joins a band of anticolonial rebels led by Timas, her fearless uncle.

Tensions escalate when Lord Tangaxoan allocates a native battalion to help the invaders crush the resisters. After getting hold of a Spaniard's horse during the next clash, Eréndira startles everyone by learning how to ride it and taking center stage as the confrontation between Europeans and Indians continues to boil. Her effectiveness as a fighter brings two unexpected consequences. Her own people are scandalized by her manlike behavior – waging war is something nice girls don't do! – and the Spaniards are so astounded by the sight of a woman on horseback that they suspect she must be some kind of spirit. Nobody is quite sure how to take Eréndira and her amazing prowess, which seem like god-sent gifts to some and treacherous black magic to others. The rebels' struggle meets with much success, but betrayal within the Michoacán forces ultimately leads to a conclusion that's at once violent, ironic, and enigmatic.

Given the nature of its story, Eréndira ikikunari is naturally strong on scenes of combat, conspiracy, and adventure. Yet given the tale's provenance in myth and legend, and Mora's wish to reproduce its folkloric qualities in cinematic terms, the film's atmosphere is more stately and dignified than wild and woolly. One of its best assets is Julián Pizá's stunningly good makeup work – gazing on Eréndira in the last part of the movie, her black-painted face highlighted with a volcanic streak of red, is like seeing an otherworldly emissary on a perilous mission among us mere humans. Like the picture as a whole, the music score is also a canny mix of traditional and contemporary elements; composer Andrés Sánchez used digital technology to create an artful blend of voices, drums, conches, and nature sounds that makes the soundtrack as timeless and expressionistic as the images.

Mora's commitment to authenticity led him to fill most of the cast with Indians from the region where the story takes place, putting them through weeks of rehearsal – samples are shown in a DVD extra – to compensate for the fact that many of them had never acted before. Director of photography Toni Kuhn gives the movie such visual power that I was surprised to learn it wasn't photographed on 35mm film; part from one portion shot with two super-16mm film cameras it was recorded on video, with one HD and two mini-DV cameras running simultaneously. Besides keeping down production costs and contributing to the immediacy of the action, this method also facilitated the film's seamless integration of graphics, animation, and photographic elements.

As vivacious and pugnacious as it is, I can't call Eréndira ikikunari a viscerally exciting film; its interest lies more in history and anthropology than in the heart-pounding entertainment we're accustomed to in widescreen epics about the past. And the history isn't always presented clearly. I wondered why the arriving Spaniards wore baby-face masks under their helmets, for instance, until the DVD's making-of documentary explained that Mora wanted to convey the outlandish impression the European invaders made when their foes first laid eyes on them – an interesting move, but hard to interpret from the evidence on the screen. Apart from small problems like these, however, the story of Eréndira provides a colorful lesson about a little-known part of North America's bitter colonial legacy.

For more information about Eréndira ikikunari, visit Facets Multimedia. To order Eréndira ikikunari, go to TCM Shopping.

by David Sterritt