Her determination to keep the harrowing truth of the ghost a secret is not an effort to directly harm her students, but her insistence in not facing her demons is indicative of the tangled web of deceit and corruption that plagued institutions like the school.īernarda represents the oppressive control of institutional bodies that the Mexican Youth Movement protested against. In many ways, she is not a villain on an individual level. The differing personalities between the likes of the somber, yet cheerful Claudia and the snappy and openly hormonal frustration of fellow classmate Kitty make for a lived-in and natural friend dynamic that arguably serves as a bigger threat to Headmistress Bernarda and her rule on the school than the presence of a noose-friendly ghost.īecause the further along we get into the story of Even the Wind is Afraid, the more apparent it is that Bernarda herself is the most threatening antagonist of the film, in spite of not being a traditional bloodthirsty lunatic. The girls, though often vain and occasionally vindictive towards one of their straight-laced peers, are united through both the circumstance of Claudia’s first ghostly encounter and the struggle to break through the restrictions put in place by Headmistress Bernarda.ĭespite only starring a small cast, a sense of community pulsates within the handful of girls forced to stay behind at the school. Even films with villains as the main characters chose simplicity over complexity and with the rising success of horror films in Mexico during the 1950s, why fix what isn’t broken? Even the Wind is Afraid initially follows this logic to a tee, introducing us to a creepy spirit right away for the girls to investigate and solve the mystery of as a hook for the plot.Īs the film progresses, the unmistakably tense dynamic between the youthful rebellion of the girls and the steel resolve of the headmistress paints a clearer and far more complicated narrative than what was presented to us in the beginning. A Mexican ghost story in the 1960s wasn’t reinventing the wheel, not with the Mexican horror standard at the time primarily being supernatural and creature features.Īccompanying Mexico’s simple horror stories were an equally simplistic approach to morality, often playing the tried-and-true method of absolute good battling and eventually overcoming an unquestionable evil. If we were to look at this film purely based on its plot, Even the Wind is Afraid doesn’t appear to have much going for it beyond the usual scares that populated Mexican horror cinema at the time. The school’s restrictive nature heavily contrasts with the stylish posh and energy of the students, more focused on boys and the joys of going back home over anything remotely school-related. A standard, stuffy interior combined with a massive, yet suffocating outdoor field of grass, gates, and the aforementioned clock tower looming over the entire school both physically and metaphorically. Tabaoda recreates a familiar, conservative setting with the attitude and aesthetic of a repressive school system, as was the norm for 1960s Mexico. Even being strict enough to reprimand one of the girls for sleeping in somewhat revealing clothes on a hot night, Bernarda insists that there is nothing wrong with the school in spite of her harboring some dark secrets that may in fact be connected to the ghostly girl sightings. Bernarda enforces the rules of the school with an iron fist, having no tolerance for sass or indecency. In the midst of their stay, they become aware of increasingly bizarre sightings of a mysterious womanly figure, with student Claudia encountering a silhouette of the figure hanging by her neck in the school’s clock tower.ĭespite the figure being visible to all of the girls, they are given no mind from Bernarda, headmistress of the school.
Today, one of the most prominent artifacts of that era that we may still use as a window into the growing rebellion of Mexican youth in the 60s exists as the 1968 Gothic supernatural horror film, Hasta el viento tiene miedo ( Even the Wind is Afraid in English).ĭirected by prominent Mexican horror director Carlos Enrique Taboada, E ven the Wind is Afraid tells the story of a group of school girls who are punished for entering forbidden property on school grounds by being forced to stay during a school break. Just like that, the steadily rising movement for the youth of Mexico was quelled in practically in an instant a brutal display of the Mexican government’s power. Known in Mexico as El Movimiento Estudiantil (The Student Movement), it wasn’t long before the Mexican government acted, quashing the movement in an attack that is now remembered as the infamous Tlalteloco Massacre in October of 1968. A new movement was on the rise, with demands made for a change to the authoritarian rule that was the Mexican norm for generations. A turbulent period in Mexico, specifically on the political end of the spectrum.
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