Doña Catalina de los Ríos y Lisperguer was the real name of this QUINTRALA woman (nickname: Catrala, Catralita derived from Catalina, although others say she got it from a poisonous parasitic creeper native to Chile, the Quitral, whose branches she used to flog her slaves with.
The casting of Ana María Lynch for the role was PERFECT, the real historic figure could have, very well, looked like this actress; the real Catalina was famous for her beauty... and her horrendous cruelty. She was born in Chile in 1604 and died there at the very old age of (for that time standards) 61 years in 1665.
During the seventeen century she was the richest and most powerful WOMAN in the whole of Chile. Many books, articles, soap operas and this movie were produced thanks to her mythical figure in history. She was tall, redhead, with hypnotic green eyes and alabaster skin, a mixture of Caucasian -Spaniards and Germans- and South American Indians, making her one of the hottest sex spots in Santiago de Chile.
Sexual appeal that she put to use wasting no time when at seventeen she poisoned her father because he threatened to disinherit her and place her in a convent, due to her extreme impudent conduct (nowadays: Women's Liberation).
Semi-illiterate (at that time women were forbidden knowledge of any kind, only church, confession and mass every day) and with a tempestuous temper, member of the richest family in the country, landowners of enormous amounts of land and tons of slaves (typical of the seventeen century) she grew wild and free from any social convention, being one of the untouchables; la Quintrala was sadistic and abusive, torturing her slaves to death (also killing many of her lovers) and went through life free of any denunciation thanks to the enormous amounts of money she distributed among the clergy, government and judges.
It's obvious that if she died peacefully in bed at 61, she never paid at the end -as in those 1950s movies with a Happy Ending- for her life of debauchery.
This movie depicts quite well all those goings on with an excellent photography and all actors involved. It's a pity that the version offered on "You Tube" lacks many scenes, but it seems that that condition of this picture is what remains of it.
Very impressive the earthquake scenes!!
It shows, overwhelmingly, the heavy, sickening, "moral" religious atmosphere Chileans were immersed in at the time thanks to the catholic church (They ruled with an iron hand and their infamous Inquisition) when women were totally repressed, slavery was a daily habit and so was the lynching of slaves and other undesirables, all of it conveniently wrapped with the periodical religious processions destined to subjugate a totally ignorant population.
Very good film, although quite slow, dark (in subject matter and photography) but fascinating because of its real life character, who, nowadays, could be the icon of a new, sensational remake!!
You can watch this movie on "You Tube" and read (mesmerizing reading) La Quintrala's biography on Wikipedia!! Read it FIRST and then watch the movie.
