Synopsis:
On November 8, 1519 the Spanish Conqueror Hernando Cortés and his small army rode into the Aztec capital of the vast Mexican Empire, where they were welcomed by the Emperor Moctezuma. Within two...
On November 8, 1519 the Spanish Conqueror Hernando Cortés and his small army rode into the Aztec capital of the vast Mexican Empire, where they were welcomed by the Emperor Moctezuma. Within two years, the Aztec civilization was in a state of orphanage, the survivors having lost their families, homes, language, temples... and Gods.
The Other Conquest opens in May 1520 when Topiltzin (Damián Delgado), a skillful Aztec scribe who is one of Moctezuma's illegitimate sons, survives the Massacre of the Great Temple by hiding under a corpse. After the Spaniards leave the sacred site, he finds his people dead, including his mother.
By 1526 Topiltzin is still striving to preserve the cult of Tonantzin, the Aztec Mother Goddess. When a squadron commanded by Captain Cristóbal (Honorato Magaloni) and Friar Diego (José Carlos Rodríguez) discover the clandestine human sacrifice of a beautiful Aztec princess, two incompatible ways of life come face to face... - and violence erupts. Topiltzin manages to escape by making Friar Diego believe he is drawn to the statue of the Virgin Mary that accompanies the Spaniards wherever they go. He is eventually captured and presented to Hernando Cortés (Iñaki Aierra), who has just returned from an ill-fated campaign to Honduras. In an attempt to create a hybrid empire, Cortés has taken Emperor Moctezuma's daughter and heiress, the notorious Tecuichpo (Elpidia Carrillo), as his new mistress and interpreter. She reveals that Topiltzin is her half-brother, and a skeptical Cortés spares the young man's life, but in turn decides to convert him to the new Spanish ways with the aid of Tecuichpo (from now on, Doña Isabel) and Friar Diego. After being subject to a brutal ritual of conversion, Topiltzin (now called Tomás) is confined in the Franciscan Monastery of Our Lady of Light.
Five years later (1531), under the tutelage of Friar Diego, Tomás is struggling to reconcile two worlds which could hardly be more different but which also share some basic truths. However, Friar Diego realizes that Tomás and Doña Isabel are forging Cortés' correspondence with Charles V, King of Spain. Things become even worse when Friar Diego discovers them making love inside the monastery, in a desperate attempt to perpetuate their race. Friar Diego takes it upon himself to save Tomás' soul, and asks Cortés to keep Doña Isabel from returning to the monastery. A pregnant Doña Isabel is secluded in a dungeon.
The overwhelming absence of his half-sister erodes what is left of Tomás' world. He falls into a state of desolation and illness. A well-meaning Indian nun (Zaide Silvia Gutiérrez) applies medieval remedies to him, but these only help turn his feverish attacks into hallucinations that merge Christian and Aztec imagery. Tomás has a vision whereby the Virgin Mary is revealed as the Aztec Mother Goddess.
The arrival of the statue of the Virgin Mary in the monastery, a token of gratitude from Cortés to Friar Diego, now causes Tomás to become genuinely drawn to the statue as a substitute for all he has lost, and he sets on a personal crusade to conquer her. If he absorbs her powers, if he fuses with her, redemption will follow.
Is the Indian's conversion real? Or is Tomás trying to retain his own beliefs under the guise of the new creed? Will he be able to survive with his sanity intact? These questions start revolving in Friar Diego's head, and although he puts many obstacles to keep Tomás from entering the sacristy and consummating his obsession with the statue, he finally allows Providence to decide whether Tomás' mission is legitimate or not. So who is in fact converting whom? Maybe the greatest mystery in the history of beliefs is how certain unorthodox encounters make us continue believing... -- © 1998 20th Century Fox
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