Desperate to escape poverty, villager Dionosio Pinzón restores an injured rooster to health and starts pitting it in cockfights. When the bird proves to be a fierce competitor, the money begins rolling in and Dionosio abandons his humble roots to cultivate the trappings of wealth.

Cloaked in the magical-realist atmosphere of its original source material—Mexican writer Juan Rulfo’s much-adapted cockfighting story—Arturo Ripstein’s is a baroque and brutish retelling. This decadent fable captures the vertigo-inducing highs and dizzying lows of fortune with tragicomic timing.