Chavela had an honest flair for ranchera – mournful, masculine Mexican music most of which she offered without changing the gender.The Globe and Mail
Her singing was pure pain, and it was no act. The late Chavela Vargas, a sad and fiery legend of Latin American song, is the subject of an adoring portrait as straightforward as its title, Chavela.
As a child in Costa Rica, she was seen as "different." Because of her boyish manner, her parents hid her from guests. Later they would divorce and abandon their child altogether. As a young adult, she took off for Mexico, her "paradise" and adopted homeland. She had an honest flair for ranchera – mournful, masculine Mexican music most of which she offered without changing the gender. In the man's world of Mexico, "she had to be the most macha of the machos," one of the film's interviewees explains.
That took the form of binge drinking and bedding politicians' wives. Artist Frida Kahlo and movie star Ava Gardner were in her circle. The story is simply told: the rise, fall and comeback of a lesbian trailblazer and soul-crushed singer. Chavela the person is more fascinating than Chavela the film – a tequila-sunrise love letter to an unknown icon.
Brad Wheeler