"¡María Candelaria!" "¡Lorenzo! ¡Lorenzo Rafael!"

Once upon a time when I was a freshman in college, I took a class called Intro to film. And it rocked. Unfortunately, it has been quite some time since that class and I'm afraid that with my abstinence from movies for 18 months on my mission, I have forgotten how to actively watch movies. So I'm a little bit rusty with analyzing them.

While you keep this valid excuse in mind, I'll confess that when the ending of Maria Candelaria wound down, I was left with the following feelings: 

A) "Wait, whaaaaaat???"

B) Depression

I mean, yeah the cinematography was great and yeah, the Taj Mahal, I mean, Dolores del Rio did a pretty good job acting/looking flawless but I didn't really get the point of the movie. But between then and now I've been pondering over the theme of Maria Candelaria and this is a major one I picked out: Innocence/Pure Love. Alright, alright, I guess it does count as two. Innocence and pure love.

Sooo in class we talked about how parallels were drawn between Christ and Lorenzo Rafael and between Maria Candelaria and the Virgin Mary. I was like, "Yeah, yeah. I see it--wait, um, no, Lorenzo Rafael stole stuff. That's not like Christ." But then I continued musing about it and have gained some insight.

                                       

(By the way, when Lorenzo Rafael is in jail and the light is shining on him, this is the painting I thought of.)

The strongest qualities that I noticed about Maria Candelaria (why do they always say everyone's full name in the movie?? I don't know. But I'm going to do it too.) and Lorenzo Rafael was their innocence. It went beyond being naive of the world, they were like children. Pure children, which explains why they didn't do anything when people did bad things to them. They were incapable. It also explains why Lorenzo Rafael can get away with stealing stuff from a store and yet is still pure. Yeah, it wasn't the best thing to do but his motives were pure. He only wanted Maria Candelaria to get better and he only wanted to be able to marry  her because he loved her. With pure love.

Their innocence also fulfilled the meaning of Maria Candelaria's name--bringer of light. The painter gained redemption, aka repented, aka changed, because he had known her. I think that when we come in contact with people with pure hearts our lives are uplifted because it gives us a view of the world as it should be. And that's what Maria Candelaria gave to the painter.