Antonieta

Antonieta
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Carlos Saura
Produced by	Pablo Buelna
Written by	Jean-Claude Carrière Carlos Saura
Starring	Isabelle Adjani Hanna Schygulla
Music by	José Antonio Zavala
Cinematography	Teodoro Escamilla
Edited by	Pablo González del Amo
Release date	21 October 1982 (Spain) 11 November 1982 (Mexico) 26 January 1983 (France)
Running time	108 minutes
Country	France Mexico Spain
Language	Spanish
Box office	Pts 38,274,776

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.

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 live 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 a 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.

As a young woman, Antonieta married but left her husband and fell madly in love with the painter Manuel Rodríguez Lozano. The painter was married and Antonieta's feelings remained unrequited because Manuel was homosexual. Their Platonic relationship lasted for several years during which she wrote him many lover letters, later published in a book.

Leon, a Mexican historian, further illustrates Antonieta's life for Anna. Still in love with the painter, Antonieta meets José Vasconcelos, a Mexican intellectual who is running for president of the country on the platform of offering education to the masses. Antonieta, is drawn into the idealist politician, becoming Vasconcelos’ lover and prime advisory.

After Vasconcelos is politically defeated, she accompanies him in exile to Paris. They have lost their political idealism. She begs him to tell her if he still needs her. He replies that, really no one needs anyone, only God. Antonieta commits her last dramatic act, by pressing a pistol to her heart in the pews of Notre Dame.