Eisenstein in Guanajuato

After the relative disappointment of "Goltzius" (was that made with any budget at all?) - this felt to me like a great return to form for Greenaway.

Clearly here he had enough money to put his talents for framing, colour and composition to great effect. Also, I thought that the two main characters were very well-cast and imbued the story with real depth; as did many of the supporting actors, such as Palomino's wife, and the bell-ringer (the only jarring note for me being the guy playing "Hunter" - who mostly seemed to be standing stiffly waiting for his next line...).

As others have noted, this is not the film you need if you want lots of "Eisenstein on set, directing" footage, but for me there was plenty of implied and explicit context regarding his standing in Russia, support in the USA and the point in his life he'd got to at the time. Well worth a viewing.

I have not seen any of Greenaway's previous movies, and while I have seen Potemkin, I barley knew anything about (the actual) Eisenstein going in.

What I loved about this movie: The editing is fantastic. It plays around with the format, having real life photos of the characters and the locations next to characters as they are mentioned, playing with angles and positions of the characters, experimenting with colors, and obviously, using montages in a great way. I hope this is all based on Eisenstein's actual writings about the subject, as it is clear that he has thoughts about what movies can do with these tools.

That's the one positive thing I have to say about this movie. The characters are stylized into cartoon characters, and the dialog is boring and unengaging. The actual storyline is very forgettable. Greenaway chose to have the movie focus on Eisenstein's experiences in Mexico, but did not include any of the actual movie-making Eisenstein did there. To me, that would have been a more interesting movie - but I can understand that Greenaway had a different vision for this story.

The sexual scenes were graphical, but not grotesque or provoking (unless you are provoked by homosexuality).

A very touching story about a filmmakers trip to Mexico that touches on identity , sexuality, desires , truth, death and filmmaking.

The love story in this is really touching , seeing someone discover there own body and accept it in such a way was beautiful.

Feels like a companion pieces do 8 & 1/2 somehow.

A bold film that takes composition to new levels with passionate experimental shots and beautifully blocked and lit frames.

Greenaway has a way of saying so much in his films that make me ask myself so many questions or feel so many feelings.

If you enjoy art and being provoked in an artful way then this film is for you. Underrated and under appreciated in my humble opinion.

I've met Greenaway several times. Worked on one of his a projects in a tangential way. His work in the 1980's was without par and quite a bit of his work since is still excellent, although 8 1/2, Pillow don't reach his prior levels -- and Guanajuato in my view is a mess. I can't recommend enough seeing Nightwatching and then J'Accuse if you want to really delve into a stunning view by one artist of another. I am very much looking forward to Greenaway's treatment of Brancusi, who he has referenced in several films, and not looking forward to the Eisenstein sequel set in Switzerland and the US.

On the film itself I guess the problem is that it neither looks at Eisenstein's work nor brings him to life. Greenway has done hagiographies of a dozen artists, but it gets a bit more uncomfortable with Eisenstein knowing he worked closely with Stalin (not Lenin who was long gone when this film is set) at destroying other artists. We know form recently opened soviet archives that Eisenstein had a side that was a nasty piece of work, promoting himself as a functionary of totalitarianism. And yes we now know that Eisenstein was the consummate sycophant to Stalin in "Ten Days.." essentially overseeing a Goebbels/Riefenstahl-like reinterpretation of the Russian revolution to write in Stalin above Trotsky, Zinoviev and perversely put him on par with Lenin.

Lets not forget that Eisenstein doggedly worked to mock the moderate revolutionary democratic socialists like Alexander Kerensky while slavishly celebrating an enabling Stalin who turned out to be the biggest mass murderer and oppressor in human history. I can't figure out if Greenaway was being ironic in proffering up the scene with the Soviet flag being planted in Eisenstein's bleeding orifice.

I would recommend every Greenaway film except this.

Ordinarily I can take Peter Greenaway or leave him alone -- chiefly the latter. But he really scores this time with a story that has longed to be told.

As is known Sergei Eisenstein hoped to work in Hollywood in the early thirties just as sound came in. But thanks to aright-wing campaign (plus its own lack of imagination) Paramount Pictures was scared off from making films of with of the scripts the great Russian director had written : an adaptation of Dreiser's "An American Tragedy" and an original historical drama "Sutter's Gold." The novelist Upton Sinclair stepped in and elected to back a film Eisenstein wanted to make about Mexico. But he knew nothing about film production and less about Eisenstein's highly improvisatory working methods. Under-budgeted and best by problems the shoot was brought to a halt when Sinclair's brother-in-law, Hunter Kimbrough discovered SME was having too much fun south of the border. Moreover he got a gander at the great man's cache of frankly gay pornographic drawings. Eisenstein not only never got to edit "Que Viva Mexico" -- he never even saw the rushes. He returned to Russia where he made "Alexander Nevsky" and "Ivam the Terrible" Sinclair meanwhile had the "Que Viva Mexico" footage sliced and diced into travelogues.

This is the backdrop of what Greenaway has done which s to present Eisenstein's Mexican sojourn as a sexual awakening. He falls madly in love (and lust) with a handsome guide. Greenaway brings the full bore of his visual imagination to telling this tale with multiple images and lighting the likes of which hasn't been seen since Sternberg. Elmer Back is superb as SME and Luis Alberti is equally great as his love interest. Not to be missed.