The combination of Emilio Fernández's fervor, Gabriel Figueroa's cinematography, and superstar María Félix in one of her most powerful roles assured that Río Escondido would be an "instant classic." Félix plays a schoolteacher personally selected by the president to bring education to rural areas still under the oppressive rule of renegade land barons. In the small town of Río Escondido she stands up to one such boss. Rape is his key weapon, and also, interestingly, his downfall: as Michael Donnelly notes, "Today the film takes on a different relevance as a triumph of a woman's resolve over mindless machismo...suggesting that the need for public involvement in the development of the nation is an issue of gender as well." Fernández's progressive thematics were somewhat deluged by didactic social realism, but the film is a showcase for Figueroa's "Eisensteinian" (or Siqueiros-influenced) cinematography, in which low angles, silhouettes and stark foregrounding emphasize, by implication, the enormity of the job to be done.