Mexican Cinema Today

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).