“What changes the body changes the soul.” Mexican actress Ana Luisa Peluffo disturbingly embodies this statement in Miguel Morayta’s La mujer marcada (US: The Marked Woman), the nasty carvings across half of her face symbolizing a shattered spirit (“You know I’m incapable of loving anyone”) that’s given way to a thirst for revenge. Having survived a car crash that killed her father and sister, Ana (Peluffo) is living in the streets, searching for the man who not only ran them off the road but then shot any survivors at the site of the wreck. As luck (and illogic) would have it, she manages to find and marry the scumbag, Rodolfo Morán (Alberto de Mendoza), who’s unaware of their connection but will find out eventually, at the climax of her elaborate revenge scheme. On the opposite side of the moral spectrum is Germán Álvarez (Joaquín Cordero), a kindhearted musician and songwriter who takes pity on the hideous Ana early on and offers her temporary shelter, a favor she’ll repay by film’s end. (Erna Martha Bauman plays Germán’s devoted girlfriend Alicia.) Logically, the film makes little sense: for example, why exactly did Rodolfo run to the car crash and play dead? Why exactly did he pay for Ana’s plastic surgery when there are plenty of other gorgeous women in Mexico? How exactly did Ana hide a gun on her person while entirely naked? These questions miss the point, however, as Morayta seems to be aiming for a mythological tone; for example, the sequence in which Rodolfo discovers Ana showering through a window, enters her home unbidden, and proceeds to sexually assault her while cloaked in darkness is practically operatic. Note the use of subjective camera as Ana is wheeled into the operating room and greeted by a creepily eager surgeon played by Enrique García Álvarez. “Your nightmare will soon be over,” he reassures her. But will it?