
The Beginning and the End
1994

1986
Director
Arturo Ripstein
Runtime
130 minutes
Average Rating
No ratings yetSynopsis
Poor Dionisio finds himself as recipient of the good fortune, but soon he forgets that everything that goes up also has to go down, and that in the depressing nothingness of his town it is easy to die.
Overall Score
Good
Category Breakdown
LGBTQ+ Representation
The film lacks explicit details regarding queer identities or sexual orientation. While Ripstein often explores marginalized lives, there is no clear evidence of non-heteronormative representation here.
Gender Representation
The story centers on Dionisio, suggesting a traditional protagonist structure. However, the environment's crushing poverty likely undermines traditional patriarchal roles of leadership and provision.
Racial & Ethnic Diversity
As a Mexican production, the film centers a non-Anglo-Saxon perspective. It provides agency to characters navigating local socioeconomic structures within a non-Western, working-class context.
Religious & Cultural Diversity
The film offers a strong critique of capitalist prosperity and the American Dream. It presents a worldview rooted in systemic critique and moral relativism within a stagnant setting.
Disability Representation
There is no specific evidence regarding the portrayal of physical or neurodivergent disabilities within the narrative.
Strengths
Areas for Improvement
AI Analysis
Arturo Ripstein’s drama serves as a fatalistic study of socioeconomic volatility. By focusing on the transient nature of fortune in a landscape of 'depressing nothingness,' the film rejects traditional tales of upward mobility in favor of social realism. The work excels at providing a non-Western lens, centering Mexican working-class experiences that disrupt global cinematic homogeneity. It uses its setting to critique institutional stability and the fragility of individual agency. However, the film lacks visible representation for LGBTQ+ identities and disability. The narrative focus remains heavily centered on a singular male protagonist, limiting the breadth of gendered perspectives.

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