Ripstein drags forward Mexico's forgotten man-rural, poor, left to the whims of destiny-in the person of one Dionisio Pinzon, town crier, who becomes a compulsive gambler when a fighting-cock, left for dead, comes surprisingly to life. His cock brings him luck and the love of a beautiful woman, whom he turns into another sort of talisman by gradually caging her free spirit in his undreamed-of riches. As is typical of Ripstein's style, the nether regions of his characters' personas, two parts folk superstition to one part poverty, are reflected in their surroundings: Dionisio's world of wealth is even more darkly surreal than the carnival hell that produced it. Incredibly, the source story by Juan Rulfo was adapted in the sixties as a lighthearted musical, but Ripstein says of his film that it "no longer shows Mexico as a colorful, happy land of the past. In this Mexico, the economic depression has taken its toll. Only a few are affluent, and whoever isn't prepared for wealth will even sell his future for a piece of the present."