To Die in the Desert

Spanish filmmaker Marta Ferrer's documentary captures the Canto Cardenche music of northern Mexico. The name comes from a cactus thorn that hurts more when removed than when it first pricks the skin. Cardenche songs aren’t designed to comfort listeners, but rather to convey the challenges of a hardscrabble life. Clad mostly in plaid shirts, cowboy hats, and jeans, the elderly men profiled here—Antonio Valles, Fidel Elizalde, Guadalupe Salazar Vásquez, and Genaro Chavarría—sing songs in living rooms and around campfires. These Cardencheros, who have performed outside of Mexico, spend the rest of their time working in the mines and cotton fields of Sapioriz, a dry and dusty town in the state of Durango. For the most part, they sing Cardenche in twos or threes without instrumental accompaniment in a tradition that has worked its way down through the generations, although Sapioriz's younger citizens seem more interested in reggaeton than traditional folk music. Many take buses to factories where they add zippers and rivets to denim, work that is not that far removed from that of their ancestors. One Cardenche practitioner explains that singing made the process of cotton-picking more pleasant for his father, who labored for little pay. "That's why they sang Cardenche," he explains. "To rest and pass the time while working." Although a few women sing in the film, they prefer to listen. The title comes from a song that features the lyrics, "I'm going to die in the desert, I know where I’m going." A fine observational documentary, this is recommended. Aud: C, P. (K. Fennessy)