Julio Bracho’s Another Dawn (Distinto Amancer) is a paranoid thriller about Octavio (Pedro Armendáriz), a heroic labor organizer who has the evidence to expose corruption by the PRI, Mexico’s ruling party for 70 years. Another Dawn’s MacGuffin is an envelope with the scandalous revelations, which Octavio needs to retrieve from a PO box and take to the train station. That’s not going to be easy, because the PRI goons have staked out both the Post Office and the train station and are tailing him, too; plus, they’ve already killed his partner.
Octavio runs into his old old college flame Julieta (Andrea Palma), who has settled into an unhappy marriage with another of their college chums, Ignacio. Julieta and Ignacio hide Octavio, but they are essentially besieged by the goons, including one shady stalker who wear sunglasses at night. Naturally, Octavio and Julieta rekindle their feelings for each other, so a love triangle is layered on the intrigue of the main story.
There are plenty of close calls leading up to a ticking-clock ending and the Casablanca-like decision that Julieta must make.
According to Mexican film historian Daniela Michel, by 1943, many Mexicans believed that enough had passed since the Revolution for the governing PRI to have bettered people’s lives. Another Dawn is director Julio Bracho’s tart commentary on the PRI’s corruption and the resultant widespread popular disappointment.
Another Dawn is not currently streamable and very hard to find. You can find unsubtitled bootleg version on YouTube. I saw Another Dawn at the 2020 Noir City as part of its Fiesta of Mexican Noir. Below is the opening sequence.