The Mexican melodrama is sardonically deconstructed in this film that, with The Secret Formula, signalled a new course for independent filmmaking in Mexico during the 1960s. Based on a Gabriel García Márquez story, it is a portrait of a provincial backwater where nothing ever happens, and the local vitelloni (to borrow Fellini's term) divide their time between the town's billiard parlor and makeshift cinema. Among the lot is Dámaso, who alone finds this routine insufficient. He breaks into the billiard parlor after hours and, while his take is next to nothing, the town minus its all-important billiard balls is turned on its head and a veritable witch hunt set in motion. Scenes between the spoiled Dámaso and his adoring and abused, very pregnant wife Ana are mordant gems of commentary on the sexual politics of poverty. The film is notable for cameo appearances by a number of artists and intellectuals, among them Juan Rulfo, Márquez, Arturo Ripstein-and Luis Buñuel as the priest whose Sunday sermon might be a masterpiece of religious doublespeak.