Zorro Unmasked - Ambush at the De La Vega House Analyzing the Second Prologue Scene in Mask of Zorro
And all it entails
The second scene in the Mask of Zorro of some import is the ambush at Diego de la Vega’s home. It is there that Rafael Montero arranges for his dastardly ambush of the heroic Zorro, having waited all day and night in preparation for the hero of the people. He has been humiliated, lost his position and been recalled from California, so that the victory is technically Zorro’s.
This humiliation along with the fact that Esperanza that great love of Diego’s has mothered a daughter and chose De la Vega over him at every turn of the way.
She obviously detests the loathsome Rafael who has not made his lust for her clear. It is evident that while he sought her hand, all he won for himself was her disdain, where Diego won her affection.
So there isn’t just an intense professional rivalry between the two men but a deep personal one. From the word go though Diego seizes a sword and prepares to make a fight of it, refusing to submit and go quietly into the night as he throws himself heart and soul into the battle against Rafael.
Rafael accepts the challenge, and the only reason the villain can match him is evidently due to the injury that Zorro sustained earlier that day. This is something that Rafael is keen to exploit to his advantage and is the reason for which Diego is almost on defence throughout the fight.
Tired, wounded and caught off guard, it is a surprise he is able to fight half as well as he does. And yet he does, still though even as the two men engage in their bloody feud, of good vs evil several of the guards advance.
A number of them disliking being ignored, and being loyal to Rafael they wish to press forward what advantages he might have.
Diego fights for love and in defence of his own, but the viewer knows it to be a futile effort. Not only does Rafael have the advantage of being better rested, of not being wounded and not being caught off guard but he has reinformcements, should he need them.
Diego cannot defeat him and all his men, and protect Esperanza and Elena his newborn babe, all at once. He is evidently in an impossible position. It is also a highly unenviable one, one that could result only in his defeat.
This fight scene is a fascinating one, as it shows a man on the brink of collapse. He has been pushed over the edge psychologically, physically and spiritually and is straining at the knot so to speak, and yet he presses onwards.
He presses to combat for all that he has left. It is a position one has never seen characters like Batman or most superheroes in. Backed up into a corner, it is clear that intellect evades Diego and so all he has left is desperation; hanging on by his fingernails.
Not even the Shadow has ever been put in this situation. It is a highly unenviable one as already stated. It is precarious and proven so when the fight begins to turn and Esperanza seeing the guards prepare to take action dives in front of her husband, taking the proverbial and not so proverbial bullet for the man she loves.
Love makes you do crazy things and all, this is really a sad end to a beautiful love story as one thing that the actress and Hopkins’ had demonstrated well was the shared love of the De La Vega couple. It was one of the most attractive points about the couple, and one of the most tragic elements to the movie, is the death of Esperanza.
Really it is this death that sparks the plot of the whole movie. Being the ‘Earth-Mother’ in a way, at least archetypally this signifies a massive violation of the cosmic order of things and of the family.
Rafael is of course a villain so one expects such a heinous crime from him, but what he does next is even worst. He knocks out Diego just as the man worries more over Elena, with the cruel Don vowing to steal everything that Diego ever held dear if only out of spite, blaming him for the death of Esperanza.
It is a truly petty moment. One that honestly solidifies Rafael as one of cinema’s greatest and most terrible villains.
Because in a way, he WINS at the very start of the movie. He kills the love of Zorro’s life, steals his daughter, burns his family estate and leaves the man a broken humiliated mess.
Sure the plot of the film in some ways steals from the OG Zorro Comte de Monte Cristo, and while it may not be as powerful as Alex Dumas’ magnum opus novel of a masked avenger seeking retribution for all that he has lost. Mask of Zorro is still easily one of the greatest action movies ever made.
It is a movie that while it takes from Cristo, never lets itself become nothing more than a shadow, and part of its charm and greatness lies in the stellar cast and the emotions they bring to their roles.
Hopkins was perfect as Diego, and the thing is while he suffers a similar fate as Edmond Dantes, he isn’t a one for one, with the classic literary hero. He’s still very much a different character, and figure.
He’s his own man. He’s his own hero and one who is substantially older and with less resources than Edmond, so that the character must fight carefully when he goes to seek out his revenge against the terrible Rafael who embodies all of Edmond’s villains and yet has some sort of different, more terrible air about him.
In some ways I like him better as a villain, than those in Cristo.
That said, imprisoned in a carriage-cage in the courtyard where he once ruled as powerfully as any King in the Medieval time and likely more magnaminiously than any of them could have imagined, Diego reaches out for his daughter when Rafael brings her.
He is reduced to begging, and does so. Zorro is reduced to begging for the last chance to hold his beloved daughter.
Rafael comments on how Elena has her mother’s eyes. Then laughing Diego’s face turns away in the rain.
Humiliated, Diego keeps begging for a few minutes until Rafael turns away. At which time, he takes to screaming out a bloody oath.
One that any other man might well have taken seriously. It is one that any other man might well have taken seriously, might well have paid heed to. Later, Rafael de Montero will, but at present he is revelling in his victory. He is basking in the knowledge that he has conquered Zorro, stolen his daughter and murdered his wife.
It is a victory like no other. No one else has ever dealt the Masked Avenger so great a blow, so complete a defeat. And it is one that most men would never come back from. Heck he’s reduced as said, Zorro to BEGGING him, for pity’s sake to let him hold his daughter. If that’s not a victory I don’t know what is.
Archetypally though, it is the moment of ultimate violation. He is not only violating the laws of nature by stealing another man’s child, but by reducing what is essentially a ‘lord of the night’ so to speak, a man who is equivalent to Hades or to Odin from mythology to begging wretchedly for his Macaria or Hnossa, is a gross offence. In Christian terms it is one that demands vengeance and retribution, as Rafael is a man sworn to Mamnon while Zorro being the good Spanish hero that he is has always been a pious Christian man.
It is for this reason that there shall never be peace between them. Why throughout the movie Diego manipulates and schemes as ruthlessly, as coldly as he does. It is why he fights tooth and nail, to avenge himself and to destroy Rafael completely and utterly.
Diego weeping and shrieking like a madman, vows ‘you’ll never be rid of me!’ in what is one of the most horrifying scenes for a reason. He’s transforming himself from a warrior for the people into something vaguely ressembling more God’s Vengeance on earth.
Stepping to an extent into a very different archetype than that of a Spanish modern Robin Hood.
What is so interesting is that Rafael will not soon forget this moment. Years later, when he returns to California, the fear of Zorro will haunt his every step. He will never truly recover, and will never truly overcome his fear of the man whom he will never be rid of.
Well, guess I'm rewatching Zorro again
One of my favorite heroes!