Arkady Boytler and Raphael J. Sevilla’s THE WOMAN OF THE PORT harbors a curious convergence of artistic currents. Boytler, a former star of the Russian screen who was friendly with Sergei Eisenstein, brought with him a flair for melodrama that gelled perfectly with the wild expressionism of Mexican cinema in the ’30s. What the screen offers is a noir cast in lovelessness, anticipating the grandiose melodramas that further defined Mexico’s Golden Age of Cinema. Bleak, but beautiful, Boytler and Sevilla’s film prefaces an entire history of Mexican cinema; in its shadows, a permeable and unspoken solemnity; in its faces, a bubbling of emotion; in its music, a sad and truthful history.