Erendira

Eréndira lives under her grandmother's rule in a vast, gloomy desert house. She endures endless chores and sleepwalks from exhaustion, while the grandmother talks to herself and vents over sentimental songs. The house feels like a prison where the girl's youth is slowly drained.

One night a sudden wind fans the curtains into candle flames, and the house burns to its foundation walls. Miraculously, Eréndira and her grandmother survive the blaze among the charred remains. The disaster forces them to confront a new, harsher reality.

The grandmother calculates the debt for destroying their home and declares that the only way to repay it is for Eréndira to sell her body. She wastes no time setting the terms and making the girl a commodity. The price of freedom becomes a grim industry.

Eréndira submits to the arrangement and is sold to a seedy local merchant for 250 pesos and three days' provisions. The man slaps and rapes her, illustrating the grandmother's merciless exploitation. The grandmother pockets the money and continues to orchestrate the operation.

The two women travel through the desert as Eréndira sells herself to countless men—peasants, workers, soldiers, and smugglers. The grandmother collects the money and oversees the enterprise, which grows into a chaotic, carnival-like spectacle with hangers-on and a mysterious photographer. The desert becomes a stage for their profit and power.

Among the many clients, Ulises, the smuggler's son, slips into Eréndira's tent after the grandmother sleeps. She teaches him how to make love, and by dawn he has fallen in love with her. A forbidden bond begins to form within the exploitation.

A group of monks abducts Eréndira in an attempt to rescue her from predatory profits. The grandmother vows to retrieve her, setting off a new chase across the desert. The mission becomes a new stage in Eréndira's captivity.

At the mission, all the young girls are ordered to marry to purify their souls. The grandmother hires a Mexican peasant boy to marry Eréndira, and after she is freed, Eréndira returns to her grandmother to resume her sexual servitude. The cycle of control continues under new guardianship.

To safeguard the money, the grandmother crafts a scheme involving a letter from someone important to legitimize her granddaughter's supposed virtue. She locks a chastity belt on Eréndira, which cannot be unlocked until the senator writes the required letter. The old woman's power grows through manipulation and control.

Ulises reappears and persuades Eréndira to run away with him, dreaming of a fortune from diamonds smuggled in oranges. The photographer warns them of ominous signs, hinting at doomed fortune. Their fledgling romance now sits on the edge of flight from authority.

The couple flees in a truck stolen from Ulises' father, heading toward the border. They are pursued by local police, the grandmother, and Ulises' father, and the photographer is shot in the ensuing chaos. The dream of escape becomes a violent chase.

After their capture, the grandmother chains Eréndira to a bed to prevent further escape attempts. The town's prostitutes, deprived of their own business, march to the rival tent and haul Eréndira away, defying the old woman's curses. Power shifts in the aftermath of the chase.

The grandmother has grown wealthy and the two live by the sea in a grand tent, a stark upgrade from their desert home. Eréndira maintains a weary, calculating calm as she navigates her trapped existence. The horizon widens, but freedom remains distant.

Ulises makes two failed attempts to kill the grandmother by poison and an explosive. Finally, he stabs her in the back with a kitchen knife, ending a long tenure of control. Eréndira's fate shifts again with her grandmother's death.

With the grandmother dead, Eréndira seizes the chance for true freedom, taking her grandmother's gold vest and running into the desert with Ulises left behind in tears. She delivers a voiceover: no voice on earth could stop her, and no trace of her misfortune was found. The final image is of her stepping into the empty horizon.