A should-have-been superstar gets her due in this lovingly made—if not always flattering—portrait of Chavela Vargas, a gender-bending singer who brought fado-like intensity to Mexican rancheras, almost all about lost love.

At her height, she wowed the public and visiting movie royalty; she even found herself in bed with Ava Gardner! But her boozy ways (“I drank the rivers dry,” she tells the camera, in retrospective mode) and refusal to compromise contributed to her decline. And then Spain’s Pedro Almodóvar, one of several passionately devoted male advocates in her life, helped launch a spectacular last act. This handsomely mounted doc makes exceptional use of translated lyrics—something often overlooked in musical tales.