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November 21, 2010
Revolución (2010)
This weekend, to coincide with the centennial of the Mexican Revolution, Mubi organized a special presentation of Revolución, a feature comprised of ten films commissioned from some of the country's more notable directors (including Fernando Eimbcke, Rodrigo Garcia, Diego Luna and Gael Garcia Bernal, both of whom also produced, Gerardo Naranjo and Carlos Reygadas). The picture adds to the commemorative cache of the omnibus picture, which often seems to serve first and foremost as a symbol of cultural significance, while offering up a mixed bag of actual perspective. In this case, however, the decade following the fall of the Porfirato is such a complex issue to celebrate (and one that this writer admittedly understands in only the most cursory terms) that the symbolic nature of the whole seeps through to the seemingly lesser parts.
To call any of the films lesser is a bit unfair - they're all good, but none can hold a candle to Reygadas' entry, Esta es me Reino, which appropriately serves as the collection's centerpiece. A purported documentary about a multinational celebration in the Mexican countryside, the film gradually turns into an increasingly unsettling Bacchanalia (at times resembling a highly politicized version of Trash Humpers). It's a virtuoso piece of filmmaking, symbolism with a capital S - which is exactly one would expect from Reygadas, who plays his cards in such a way that his images strike the appropriate chords even when we don't understand their literal interpretation. Upon second viewing, snippets of interviews begin to make sense - one man, perhaps worried about the noise, complains that the police will never come when called, while an American says (in English) that "they don't need disorder." It's a portrait of culture that is at once protective and critical; it points fingers in all directions even as it lifts its glass in salute. At the midpoint, a man is seen giving a speech that seems to sum up the film. "This poem is dedicated to our ancestral traditions," he intones. "It is also dedicated to everything new, to everything that is yet to surge. To everything image wise: intelligence, consciousness, and our roots."
Prior to Regadas' film, the strongest entry is El Cura Nicolás Colgado, by Amant Escalante (Sangre), a strikingly black and white allegory that points to both the anticlerical Calles regime and the industrialization of Mexico using the visual lexicon of Jodorwosky and Bunuel. And then there's Gerardo Narano's nearly silent R-100, which finds two bloodied men crossing the desert, desperately seeking transportation. It's a harsh film, beautifully photographed and ragged at the same time - I love that Naranjo chose not to mask off the rough edges of his camera's aperture - and it climaxes with a shot that is far too pointedly obvious but that, had I been the one making the film, I couldn't have ignored any more than he did.
Not every entry deals with violence; Mariana Chenillo's La Tienda De Raya is the entry most openly critical of modern Mexico, but it's also the sweetest. And while Rodrigo Garcia's closing piece, 7th & Alameda, is but a single, simplistic expression - Pancho Villa and his revolutionaries ride through an intersection in modern-day Los Angeles in a series of extreme slow motion shots - it contains at its opening an exceedingly lovely juxtapostion: Garcia shows us a gaggle of Mexican men sitting on a grassy knoll on the side of the road, playing into the standard image of migrant day laborers waiting for a gig, before cutting to a wide shot that reveals that they're all actually gathered to watch a childrens' soccer game in a city park.
Watching Revolución was a nice companion piece to the journey I've vicariously been taking with my old partner in cinematic discourse, Matthew Clayfield. For the past two months, Matt has been traveling through Mexico with his friend Austin Andrews, documenting the country in words and photographs as the Centenary approached. Their project, which will beget a book, is entitled Between Two Anniversaries, and the chronicles enscribed thus far can be read and viewed here. My favorite entries are the two-part Migration which detail a week spent in the city of Arriaga, waiting for a train along with the hundreds of indocumentados who will hitch rides atop it into the Northern city of Veracruz, and the piece on St. Death, the non-cannonical saint who's become increasingly venerated in the barrios of Mexico City. Between Matt's words and Austin's stunning photography, this is top notch journalism. The next time Mr. Clayfield crosses through Texas, hopefully I won't be making a film and can finally buy him a drink; he deserves one.
Posted by David Lowery at November 21, 2010 8:30 PM