Part of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s mission is to foster greater understanding through world cinema. This year 72 Foreign Language films were submitted for Golden Globes consideration. Here is an overview of one of them.

Gloria Trevi, the “Mexican Madonna,” is perhaps not especially well known in the U.S. But her fame is huge in the Spanish-speaking world. The biopic Gloria tells how coming from poverty, then teenage Gloria (Sofia Espinosa) attracted the attention of music producer Sergio Andrade (Marco Peréz). Gloria enters Sergio's world, which consists of an entourage of young girls longing for stardom and eventually she is accused of and jailed for helping to run what is described as a sex cult.

Trevi left Monterrey, Mexico at the age of twelve to pursue a career in the capital Mexico City, where she met Andrade who was to become her manager. She had earlier sung and danced on the streets for spare change, taught aerobics, and served quesadillas at a food stand. In 1985, Trevi became a member of a short-lived girl group named Boquitas Pintadas. After the group broke up in 1988, she approached Andrade for the production of her first solo album, "What Am I doing Here?" which was released in 1989 and scored a number one hit Though often styled as the “Madonna of Mexico”, she was not simply sexually provocative, also using her music and videos as a vehicle for gutsy taboo busting and political activism in Mexico. Her lyrics dealt squarely with religion, homelessness, prostitution, drug trafficking, drug overdose, hunger, the upper class, war deaths, and violence against women.

Directed by Christian Keller and written by Sabina Berman, Gloria is shot with glossy, high-key lighting. Gloria's actual musical performances, which enthralled Spanish speaking communities, are used sparingly. But harsh language, a “trademark” of Trevi's, is used extensively. Structurally, the movie is not linear, the action jumps from Mexico City in the eighties and early nineties to Brazil in the late nineties. The film tries to reconstruct some of Trevi's most spectacular TV appearances and other moments. Gloria has several cameos of personalities from the actual Mexican entertainment industry. The film is not a musical but a drama that shows the main characters without adulation. But the does reserve some sympathy for Gloria herself.

Serge Rakhlin