Carpe diem

A long-forgotten Mexican film enriched the internationalism that distinguished Tito’s Yugoslavia, writes Gavin O’Toole

In an era when conflict, genocide, ultranationalism, racist deportations and protectionism appear to be spreading like plagues, it is easy to despair about the fractured left’s weakness in the face of fascism.

But history reminds us that in the global progressive arsenal resides a secret weapon comprising powerful bonds held together by a form of cultural quantum entanglement: internationalism.

And there is no better example of what Einstein might have regarded as a social example of “spooky action at a distance” than the impact of an obscure Mexican film in a Balkan state that would become the beating heart of global solidarity.

The 1950 Mexican melodrama Un día de vida directed by the great Emilio “El Indio” Fernández is a curious symbol of the cultural entanglement between revolutionary peoples.

Set during the Mexican Revolution, it tells the story of an army colonel Lucio Reyes (played by Roberto Cañedo) sentenced to death for treason after leading an armed revolt in protest at the assassination of Emiliano Zapata.

Lone Cuban journalist Belén Martí (Columba Domínguez) travels to Mexico to write about the Revolution, finding from the start that old money has been brought down a peg and power has edged closer to the people in many ways.

Martí becomes obsessed with Reyes, and he falls for her in turn, not least because her name reminds him of a man who fought for Latin American unity.

There is romance and talk of escape, but the colonel nobly accepts his fate, to which his heartbroken mother becomes resigned after having also lost her husband and other sons to the struggle for justice.

Un día de vida is a minor masterpiece but was not well received domestically or in Latin America and is now considered a marginal work in the pantheon of Mexican cinema.

Message and mood, however, are everything, and circumstances resulting from the split between Josip Broz Tito and Joseph Stalin—a communist power struggle for control of the Balkans—left Soviet cinema out of favour.

Yugoslavia began importing foreign films and, as US films were ideologically unacceptable, Mexican movies filled the gap, suitable for coming from outside the vicinity yet lauding revolutionary change.

In 1952, Un día de vida was released in Yugoslavia as Jedan dan života—and the rest is history. It would become the most successful film ever shown in the country.

By 1953, half of Belgrade’s citizens had seen it, and it had smashed box office records, a popularity that would only grow in subsequent decades as Yugoslav distributors continued to renew their rights to screen it.

It was regularly broadcast on television in Yugoslavia and its successor states, was still being shown as late as 2010 in Sarajevo, and is now considered a classic of Yugoslav cinema.

What explains the popularity of this Mexican melodrama about a heroic martyr with partisan grit willing to die for his ideals (in this case, Zapatismo) is that it clearly chimed with the essentially agrarian values of socialist Yugoslavia. Rapid industrialisation drawing people to the cities was in full flood, just as it was then in Mexico under Miguel Alemán.

Explanations aside, Un día de vida would have an enduring impact on Yugoslav culture, spawning a style of popular music called “Yu-Mex” in the 1950s and 1960s that incorporated mariachi and ranchero sounds.

Even now the sentimental voices of rural Mexico can be heard in the songs of gypsy bands that perform in Belgrade’s restaurants. In particular, the film popularised “Las mañanitas” which in its Yugoslav form became “Mama Huanita” after the original movie’s mater dolorosa, Colonel Reyes’ mother.

Such was the cultural imprint that, in 1997, after many years of receiving letters from Balkan admirers, Columba Domínguez even attended a gala screening at the Yugoslav Film Archive in Belgrade.

The Yugoslav Film Archive in Belgrade

Perhaps most importantly, however, with the tragic and bloody break-up of Tito’s socialist state into the present-day Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Kosovo and Slovenia, Jedan dan života and its music has become associated with “Yugo-nostalgia”, a political and cultural yearning for a more enlightened past.

This serves to underline the profound internationalism that characterised the entire Yugoslav experience—a multinational, multicultural state forged in the battle against fascism that then refused to yield to both western and Soviet imperialism.

While Tito’s regime has much to answer for, there is no denying its internationalist credentials, with its political philosophy differentiated by leadership of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) established in Belgrade in 1961 as a conscious effort to bypass the destructive bipolarisation of the Cold War.

As another arms race begins and the US through Nato, the European Union, Russia and China inaugurate a new era of imperial competition under global capitalism, NAM’s message and that of its revolutionary sibling in the Tricontinental Conference can only serve as inspiration for today’s weakened left.

And Belgrade’s role as a crucible of solidarity was again on display this week with a gathering of the Democracy in Europe Movement 2025 (DiEM25), the most explicit expression of internationalism on the continent today and a key champion of a Progressive International. Supporters of DiEM25 came together in the Serbian capital at the weekend, with those present including activists hailing from Mexico, Ecuador and Brazil.

Supporters of DiEM25 met in Belgrade this week

They also hosted speakers from the Serbian protest movement forged in the insurgent atmosphere that has developed since the November 2024 collapse of Novi Sad railway station.

Students across the country have blockaded urban areas in peaceful demonstrations calling for elections to displace the regime of President Aleksandar Vučić, tapping into anger about corruption under his 12-year rule—and facing an increasingly violent police crackdown.

Opponents of Vučić accuse him and his cronies of an authoritarian assault on democracy and are deeply suspicious of his close ties to Moscow.

In an example of how internationalism continues to permeate the political culture of radicals in the former Yugoslavia, Belgrade’s protesters told DiEM25 that their efforts are, in essence, on behalf of European unity at a time when its nationalist right is being seduced by Russia.

Such solidarity is an established undercurrent in the progressive politics of a country that has historically chosen non-alignment over subjection.

If the passion of the Serbian youth lives up to the Yugoslav internationalism of their forebears to even a small degree then, just like the unexpected popularity of a Mexican film in a distant land, they can inspire people everywhere to unite in forging a better future.

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