AllMovie

Volatile, home-grown Mexican director and actor Emilio "El Indio" Fernández guides this simple melodrama through its paces to put across a relatively effective -- though idealistic -- story about social change. Set in a backwater village, the tale begins when an architect arrives in town, sent by the government. It turns out that the local schoolteacher is fed up with holding classes in a ramshackle lean-to that barely keeps a roof over the students' heads. The architect's job is to make sure a decent school is built. But on the opposite side of the fence is a local landowner who is against the project. Battle lines are drawn, and the conflict over the school starts to galvanize the villagers.