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Mexican Cinema Today
By Jason Wood
Alejandro González Iñárritu's Amores Perros, 2000
Eight years ago the gritty urban drama Amores Perros and the provocative coming-of-age road movie Y tu Mamá También alerted the film world to the abundant talent working in contemporary Mexican cinema. From directors Alejandro González Iñárritu and Alfonso Cuarón, writers Guillermo Arriaga and Carlos Cuarón, cinematographers Rodrigo Prieto and Emmanuel Lubezki (who alongside Guillermo Navarro are among the most in-demand in the world) and composer Gustavo Santaolalla to the electrifying screen presences of Gael García Bernal and Diego Luna, Mexico was recognized for the depth and vitality of its creative filmmaking talent. The rise to prominence of this group was aided by a new entrepreneurial spirit amongst Mexican financiers and producers and coincided with an emerging generation of Mexican moviegoers thirsting for intelligent, identity-affirming, locally made product. Mexico suddenly had a national cinema to shout about, and global critics and audiences sat up and took notice.
In the years following the release of these watershed pictures, however, Mexican cinema has continued to flourish but also flounder, producing important new cinematic voices despite an industry that remains susceptible to crisis and the hostility of the government. The relationship between cinema and the state is pronounced, creating the Mexican film scene's periodic boom-to-bust cycles: periods of cinematic famine lead to ones of high productivity and critical and commercial success before local talent migrates to Hollywood and the cycle begins all over again.
Fernando de Fuentes
The cinematic tradition in Mexico stretches back to the medium's earliest days. One of the belle époque's success stories, Mexico was prosperous and politically stable in the 1890s, and the movie projectors and early films produced by the Lumière Brothers appeared there shortly after their popularity in Europe. In this formative period the majority of "entertainments" were locally produced documentations of national events. In 1907 one of the first major films to be produced from a script was completed: Felipe de Jesús Haro's El Grito de Dolores. More films followed, but, beginning in the 1920s, the Mexican film industry slumped as Hollywood asserted its dominance. Moreover, established Mexican film artists like Delores del Rio left to respond to overtures from across the border. It was the coming of sound that allowed Mexico to regain ground as a major filmmaking entity, and while in 1932 (a few years after the arrival of Sergei Eisenstein, one of a number of non-Mexican filmmakers to find inspiration there) only six films were produced, these pictures, such as El anónimo by Fernando de Fuentes, were hugely significant. By 1933, buoyed by renewed private investment, Mexican cinema was once again at the forefront of Spanish-language film production, developing its own genres and styles such as the comedia ranchera and enjoying a healthy relationship with the Cárdenas government. This fertile patch, including such classics as Vámonos con Pancho Villa! by Fernando de Fuentes, continued right up to the end of the 1930s and the declaration of World War II.
Although a more conservative regime, the administration of Avila Camacho, from 1939 to 1946, coincided with one of the healthiest periods in Mexican cinema. With World War 2 leading to a decline in American production, a foothold was gained both at home and abroad, with Mexico exporting its films for the growing Latin American market and establishing international stars such as Mario Moreno "Cantinflas," Pedro Armendáriz and María Félix. Marked by their technical excellence, these films, a mix of family melodramas and patriotic historical epics, flourished as Mexico achieved the difficult task of establishing a self-sustaining film industry capable of bridging the gap between art and commerce.
The golden age of Mexican cinema, its Cine de Oro, coincided with the administration of Miguel Alemán (1946-1952) and was linked to unprecedented economic growth and prosperity. Another contributing factor to this period of profit and productivity was the benefits of Mexico's wartime alignment with the U.S.; increased revenue and access to technology became widely available. Similarly, the period saw an amplified attention to filmmaking by the state as it sought to protect a valuable cultural and economic asset. Thus, in 1942 the Banco Cinematográfica was founded to facilitate the funding of film production. A law was also passed protecting the industry from income tax. Thriving in the shade of subsidisation, Mexican cinema found itself in the midst of an epoch of big stars (Germán Valdez 'Tin-Tan', Ninón Sevilla), accomplished films (Salón México and Pueblerina by Emilio Fernández and Una familia de tantas by Alejandro Galindo) and high output that continued into the late 1950s.
Alejandro Galindo's Una Familia de Tantas, 1949
Sadly, the involvement of the state was also to contribute to the increasingly conservative and middle-class nature of Mexican cinema throughout the 1950s. Rising production costs were problematic and films stuck to tried and tested formulas to court broad appeal. The country's intelligentsia began a quest for quality filmmakers and the encouragement of younger filmmaking talent but to little avail, and, in 1958, with the presidency of Adolfo López Mateos, Mexican cinema entered another dark epoch.
Identified in 1960 after a series of concerts attended by leftist critics, scholars and filmmakers including Luis Buñuel, the Spanish director who relocated to Mexico in 1946, El Grupo Nuevo Cine published the magazine Nuevo Cine from April 1960 to August 1962. A manifesto criticising the Mexican film industry, Nuevo Cine demanded a number of sweeping reforms, including the formation of an institution to teach filmmaking and increased exhibition and production of independent films. In part a response to declining production levels but also as a retort to calls from young university-based cineastes, the First Contest of Experimental Cinema was announced in 1964 and a new generation of politicised filmmakers was born. Rising to prominence in the 1970s under the presidency of Luis Echevarría Alvarez, an ardent supporter of the arts who established new cinema funds and support infrastructures, the key filmmakers of this period include Alfredo Joskowicz (Crates), Arturo Ripstein (El castillo de la pureza), Paul Leduc (Reed: México Insurgente), Felipe Cazals (the exceptional Canoa) and Jorge Fons (Los albañiles).
Felipe Cazals's Canoa, 1976
However, the subsequent coming to power of José López Portillo in 1976 began a period that represents the nadir of modern Mexican cinema. Reversing many of Echevarría's advancements and policies and re-introducing stricter censorship and encouraging the return of private investment and fat-cat producers to reduce the involvement and responsibility of the state, Portillo's six years saw increased production (94 features in 1981) but lower production values and the suppression of films dealing with difficult social themes. In 1982 the presidency of Miguel de la Madrid bought renewed hope with the establishment of the Mexican Film Institute (IMCINE) and the encouragement of a wider diversity of product in both political and aesthetic terms.
During the 1990s the work of IMCINE and the two excellent film schools, the Centro Universitario de Estudios Cinematograficos (CUEC) and the Centro de Capacitación Cinematográfica (CCC), began to have an impact on the Mexican filmmaking talent pool. Directors who would go on to become international names, some hailing from these universities, emerged with their debut features. Included in this roll call are Carlos Carrera with La Mujer de Benjamín; Alfonso Cuarón's Sólo con tu Pareja; María Novaro's Danzón; Alfonso Arau's Como Agua para Chocolate and Guillermo del Toro's audacious allegorical horror yarn, Cronos. Alongside González Iñárritu and Alfonso Cuarón, del Toro would become one of the most prominent figures in Mexican cinema, with the trio close friends and working associates. Of equal importance is the support that these artists would give to the next generation.
Alfonso Arau's Como Agua para Chocolate, 1992
Released almost simultaneously Amores Perros and Y tu Mamá También inspired media talk of a "buena onda." The former marked the audacious directorial debut of González Iñárritu, a DJ and commercials director distinct in that he was neither a product of the Mexican film schools nor a beneficiary of IMCINE support; the latter was the work of a more experienced filmmaker returning home from Hollywood for a personal, partly privately financed project. Both films featured the poster-boy looks and electrifying screen presence of Gael García Bernal, whose role in the renaissance cannot be overlooked; each was confident, stylishly shot, and structurally complex. Moreover, these films were thematically provocative in their treatment of prescient social issues and thrillingly forthright in their willingness to address the ills afflicting contemporary Mexican society. Both pictures were hugely acclaimed at global film festivals and achieved domestic and international commercial success. Also released during this period, but less conspicuous outside of Spanish speaking markets, was the more traditionalist, IMCINE-funded El Crimen del Padre Amaro by Carlos Carrera. The tale of a recently ordained priest who is sent to a small parish church to assist an aging Father but there begins an affair with one of his flock, this distinctly Buñuelian movie harnessed the fervour for locally made pictures, the star power of García Bernal (who is excellent as Amaro) and the provocative subject matter to gain a release on a then unprecedented 365 Mexican screens. It remains one of the highest grossing pictures in Mexican cinema history.
Perhaps the brightest and most significant star to emerge in the immediate post Amores /Y tu mama climate was Carlos Reygadas, whose remarkable Japón also offered evidence of Mexican cinema's richness and diversity. Completed with a team of newcomers and shot in Super 16 'Scope to make phenomenal use of its natural habitat, this parable-like tale of a man's odyssey to a remote valley location to take his own life climaxes with an audacious final tracking shot set to Arvo Pärt's Cantus. Applauded for its uncompromising aspirations to a transcendental form of filmmaking, the film suggested the arrival of a major new talent.
Fernando Eimbcke's Temporado de Patos is another key work from this period. A beguiling first feature wise and wonderful way beyond its director's tender years, the film emerged out of Centro de Capacitación Cinematográfica graduate Eimbcke's desire to make a movie about adolescents that reflected their constant searching and rejection of the established order. Set in the Tlatelolco area of Mexico City, the film opens on a Sunday morning in a run-down council estate and uses a look at a volatile quartet drawn together by fate to offer a moving, deceptively simple and insightful mediation on adolescence, sexual curiosity and family strife. Largely using first-time actors and crew and making a virtue of its minimal budget, this sparsely scored gem drew favourable comparisons to the films of Jim Jarmusch.
Carlos Carrera's El Crimen de Padre Amaro, 2002
Despite this embarrassment of talent at 2000, storm clouds began to again gather ominously on the horizon. The unfavourable distribution of the peso at the box office made recoupment almost impossible for private investors. Without government-initiated tax incentives, and confronted by escalating production costs and prints & advertising budgets, private producers faced an arduous task getting an independent feature off the ground. Deeper cracks began to appear in the façade with President Vicente Fox's disclosure of his intention to discontinue state funding, axe IMCINE and close both the talent-breaking Centro de Capacitación Cinematográfica film school and the Estudios Churubusco. Thankfully, international uproar prompted the Mexican congress to swiftly scrap the proposals and, in 2004, perform an astonishing about turn and actually double the Mexican Film Institute's budget. IMCINE's two nearly depleted funding schemes, Fidecine (intended for more mainstream productions) and Foprocine (for directorial debuts and experimental films), were replenished and private investors, now seen as existing not in opposition to IMCINE but in collaboration with it, were also buoyed by international co-production opportunities (especially with other Spanish speaking territories) and mooted tax incentives. Another crisis moment in Mexican was temporarily averted.
Though recent years have provided more evidence that the structural problems that beset Mexican cinema are likely to persist, they have also born witness to the continuing strong output of its established talents and the rise to prominence of yet more new and exciting voices. Refusing to restrict themselves to work in Mexico, Alfonso Cuarón, Guillermo del Toro and Alejandro González Iñárritu all developed international productions that solidified their reputations as major film artists. Del Toro continued to balance studio features like Hellboy with more personal Spanish-language fare such as The Devil's Backbone and Pan's Labyrinth. Cuarón segued from the Harry Potter franchise to the P.D. James adaptation Children of Men with considerable aplomb, and González Iñárritu followed up the Memphis-set 21 Grams with the globe-spanning Babel.
Japón
These three figures drew criticism in their homeland for apparently abandoning it. Such criticisms are blinkered, not least because they ignore the fact that the raising of funds significant enough to facilitate their filmmaking aspirations within Mexico proved impossible. They also fail to register that no matter where they work, these directors all retain their key crew and collaborators. Perhaps most importantly, the trio use their elevated positions to act as ambassadors for Mexican cinema and shepherd new directors through their Mexico-based production companies. The trio, to whom the 2007 Academy Awards were seemingly dedicated given the amount of nominations their respective films secured, arguably became a quartet with the addition of Carlos Reygadas to their ranks. Having scored more critical acclaim with Batalla en el cielo, Reygadas's Silent Light, his third feature and a Dreyer-inspired eulogy to love and faith, attained instant masterpiece status. Reygadas has also used his position for the greater good, Amat Escalante's Sangre being just one of his producer credits. Gael García Bernal and Diego Luna continued their good work both in front of and behind the camera, acting in major auteur productions, establishing their own Canana production outfit and moving into directing with Défecit and J.C. Chávez respectively. 2008 will see them re-team as sibling rivals in Carlos Cuarón's Rudo y Cursi.
Having continued to monitor developments in Mexican cinema I can confirm that the talent pool has far from run dry. Juan Carlos Rulfo's Sundance-winning In the Pit, a documentary portrait of the construction workers involved in Mexico City's Periferico freeway, stands out for its examination of the human dimensions involved in any public project. Francisco Vargas Quevedo's El Violín follows the plight of an elderly musician caught up in the campesina peasant guerilla movement. The central performance of Don Angel Tavira, a non-actor born in 1924 is truly astonishing. Despite being a CCC graduate, Vargas's assured touch and singularity of vision, not to mention his background in radio, stirred echoes of Alejandro González Iñárritu. Also evocative of Amores Perros in its engagement with cycles of poverty and inner city deprivation is Uruguayan-born director Rodrigo Plá's La Zona. A taut social thriller that looks at what happens when three teenagers from the wrong side of the tracks enter a wealthy residential estate, the film offers a piquant assessment of segregation in all its shapes and forms.
Año Uña
At this year's Guadalajara International Film Festival, a world-class showcase for Ibero-American films, two Mexican titles particularly stood out. The first was Fernando Eimbcke's enigmatically titled sophomore effort, Lake Tahoe, which offers a series of wry observations on the complexities of relationships and the passage from adolescence to adulthood. The film hinges on Diego Cataño, first discovered in Temporado de patos and the next poster star of Mexican cinema following his performance in Jónas Cuarón's brilliant, Chris Marker-inspired Año uña. Cochochi, from directors Israel Cárdenas and Laura Amelia Guzmán, is arguably the finest film yet from Canana. Refreshing in its directness, Cochochi follows Evaristo and Tony, indigenous brothers from the northwest of Mexico, who have just graduated from elementary school. The pair receives an assignment: to deliver medicine to a small town in the Sierra Tarahumara. Dreading the long road ahead they take their grandfather's horse without permission and set off on a journey that becomes longer and more arduous. Abbas Kiarostami's sublime Where is the House of my Friend? Is an apt point of reference.
The ensuing years will without doubt bear witness to the emergence of other distinctive Mexican filmmakers. With numerous projects in development those that have already consolidated their positions in world cinema will also continue to dazzle and impress. And so, for a film industry that continues to remain at the mercy of the prevailing political and economic climate and which may never secure financial or structural stability, one thing is absolutely certain: in Mexico, whatever the challenges, talent endures.
Jason Wood is a writer and film programmer. A contributor to Sight and Sound, Vertigo and The Guardian, his recent publications include The Faber Book of Mexican Cinema, Talking Movies and 100 Road Movies.