Gueros

First of all, there is a simple question to ask yourself in order to find out if you're likely to enjoy this movie: have you seen and enjoyed films like P.T. Anderson's "Inherent Vice" and "Punch-Drunk Love"; or the Coens' "A Serious Man" and "Inside Llewyn Davis"; or even that other work in the oddly specific Mexican cinema genre of "Mexico City's disenchanted youth living in unidades habitacionales (low-income housing complexes, similar to the British council estates or the U.S. projects), going from action to action without much ambition, peppered with existential and black humor and shot in black and white" that is "Temporada de Patos" ("Duck Season")? If so, boy are you gonna love this one!

"Güeros"'s title referring to white people might make one think that this is a politically-charged deconstruction of racism and classism in Mexico, but much like the film makes a point of saying how difficult it is to define who IS a "güero" in Mexico, it also makes a point of saying how difficult it is to define pretty much ANYTHING in this culture. Politics and society unquestionably play a role in the film, but more as a backdrop (an inescapable one if you happen to live here) than as a main subject. Overall, the film is content in hopping from place to place and short mission to short mission, only offering glimpses of the reality it is set in, in order to make its grandest statement that is about, well... nothing.

Much like most of the films mentioned at the start, "Güeros" is existentialist at its core, the aimlessness and lack of a point IS the point. Unlike other pointless films however, "Güeros" is rarely boring. The chemistry between the main characters, the tiny mysteries woven into their world, the gorgeously simplistic imagery, the unexpected twists (including some weird meta references and even an instance of the fourth wall being broken) and, most of all, the amazingly witty dialogue ("Güeros" is FAR more, and more universally, funny than the vast majority of Mexican films that have the gall to call themselves "comedies") make the experience of watching this film more enjoyable and more likely to stay with you than most other films of its kind.

A hip coming of age road movie is the first feature from gifted Mexican writer- director Alonso Ruizpalacios. Shot in academy ratio and black and white and marked by a fresh use of camera, editing, sound, and humor and a breaking the fourth wall that owes something to the Nouvelle Vague, it focuses on Tomás, a slim, pale teenage bad boy ("güero" is Mexican slang for light-skinned) whose mother can't cope with him, so sends him from Veracruz to live in Mexico City for a while with his older brother "Sombra" ("dark-skinned"). Sombra is a student at the national university, but it's disrupted by a huge strike (loosely based on the 11-month strike of 1999), and he's "on strike from the strike," sitting idly in his trashy concrete apartment, a depressed slacker trying to teach himself card tricks. They get out, with his roommate and best friend Santos and girlfriend Ana (a strike leader), on a mission to find a cult Mexican rock idol of the Sixties called Epigmenio Cruz admired by their late father and both brothers, reportedly dying of cirrhosis of the liver, to pay him homage. It's said that Cruz once "made Bob Dylan cry." Ruizpalacios has acknowledged a debt to Truffaut, Godard, Wim Wenders, Jim Jarmusch, and Fellini, but his light touch, wit, and grasp of earthy Spanish vernacular (though he studied in London and speaks perfect English too) also link Güeros with Latin American youth films like Alex dos Santos' 2006 Glue, Che Sandoval's You Think You're the Prettiest, But You Are the Sluttiestt (2009), and the work of Fernando Eimbcke and Gerardo Naranjo. This won prizes at Berlin and Tribeca and had a limited US release May 2015 (see A.O. Scott's enthusiastic and detailed description in the NYTimes). Now out on DVD from Kino Larber. Watched on a DVD provided by Rodrigo Brandão (Indie Strategy) 2 Jan. 2015.

The story here is as clever as it is simple. Two brothers and a friend hit the road in search of a dying Mexican folk singer who, according to legend, once made Bob Dylan cry with one of his touching ballads. While there are numerous side stories and plenty of character development, the plot doesn't get a whole lot deeper than that, and it is all the better for it. In that sense, the filmmakers knew exactly what they were doing and they achieved it wonderfully.

The film has a few flaws, but overall I thought it was pretty good. It could have been shorter, but the pacing is great. I felt like a few of the scenes were added just to ensure a sufficient running time and they could have been cut. One thing I loved about the film was that we never actually hear the music of the fictional Mexican folk singer that the brothers are following. Their car's cassette player is broken so they only ever listen to him via headphones. We are left to watch their silent reactions and fill in the missing pieces for ourselves. I'm not sure if the filmmakers had intended to possibly insert music during post production and then decided against it, but either way it is very effective and well done.

Without giving anything away, the ending of the film is right in line with the rest of the film's pacing. It is slow and anticlimactic, but we still end up feeling like everything turned out just the way it should, much like the characters are left feeling. And it is totally hilarious, but in such a dry way that you just might miss it.

Despite being a road film in essence, with characters traveling around and getting into adventures, Güeros isn't about story or characters so much as it is about a feeling. It's a feeling that most of us likely experience at some point in our lives, and for that reason most people will be able to relate to this film on some level.

This film stands out among the majority of contemporary Mexican films, this film is very interpretive and it may be that you do not understand what it means at first, but analyzing it in depth you can see an effort to do something of quality. Although the main story is not very attractive, the situations that the characters go through become a message and a portrait of the reality of Mexico City. I don't want to go deeper because I think that everyone should have their point of view on what is portrayed in this film.

On the technical side, the performances are very good, the photography is good, the production design is good, the direction is very good, in general it is a different film from the rest, deep and realistic.

I think the humanity shown in this film is amazing, because it doesn't have a presemptuous character is able to deliver, in a natural way, a very powerful message. I completely recommend it and I think it speaks about important topics in Mexico.