Drama/Mex

Definitely the best film I saw at Cannes. Mexican cinema is really coming a long way right now, and this film was even better than Tu Mama Tambien. The director filmed the whole thing with a hand-held video camera and amateur actors (who were his friends). His approach gives the film a real gritty feeling, keeping clean of that "hollywood smell". His shots are beautiful and graceful, as is the story. It was filled with emotion, drama (obviously), and strong characters. It compels you to continue watching, without even being really sure what the plot/point is. It is a film that inspires hope in life (and life's little unexpected and unwanted surprises) and encourages us all to view beauty and innocence where we can find it, because it is so often lacking. For a film that was created essentially without a budget, it rivals and often surpasses those Hollywood blowouts that lose the essence of film making in a drive for commercial success. I strongly recommend Drama/Mex to anyone who also enjoys independent cinema and beautiful films, and pray that it comes out on DVD in the states sometime soon.

The best Mexican FILM for the last 8 years. A lesson to Reygadas and other ART filmmakers, it shows that you can go to Cannes as a consequence of your talent, not to your skills as a provocation seller.

A lesson to commercial directors and producers, I dare them to touch and entertain the audience like this film does.

Mexican cinema needs to encourage this kind of artists, we have to stop spending millions of dollars making trash, Lets do 10 of this beautiful human experiences instead of one big meaningless bullshit.

Naranjo and guys like Iván Avila, Julian Hernandez, Fernando Eimbcke and other newcomers deserve to shoot something every year

Thanks for the effort...

Looking forward the next films of Naranjo.

I have to admit I watched this film by mistake. I was checking previews on pay per view, and it seemed interesting but not enough for the $5.99 they charge. But then I pressed the wrong button and I found myself, regretfully, watching it. I hoped until the end it would go somewhere with the characters but it didn't. It reminded me a lot of "Amores perros" another film whose popularity I still cannot understand . Interconnected stories!!??? First of all, what stories? Yeah, they all happen in the same town and this town has a beach, so people end up there...oh, I forgot to mention that the stories happen in a hot day so the actors in these interconnected stories are all sweating, so there is some connection. I agree with other reviews, the camera work was interesting at the beginning but as the story became a bore, it made the film even more difficult to watch. The music (Beethoven on guitar) was so cliché that by the end I was keeping myself amused by guessing when would it start playing.

I really like this movie simply because it is so haotic! Real life is haotic, but humans have that socially programmed need to control everything - which is impossible! Grown man is grown when he starts understanding that clearly.

The girl - she has feelings to both of the guys. One is good, the other is bad, buth both attract her. It's cute.

Gerardo Naranjo's sophomore feature, "Drama/Mex", is as unhinged as its protagonists. Essentially, the film plays out as an Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu hybrid, dubiously trying to forcefully connect three stories uncoiling in Acapulco. The first is of Fernanda (Diana Garcia) who runs into Chano (Emilio Valdes), her ex boyfriend at a café; the next thing you know, they're already in bed. In this case, the drama here is that, as familiar as it may seem, she already has a boyfriend named Gonzalo (Juan Pablo Castaneda). At the same time, another tedious narrative thread follows Mariana, who, after just being hired by fellow prostitutes, spots Jaime (Fernando Becerril)—a pretty damn old man who has such meaningless life that he essentially goes to the city to kill himself—and gets him to feed her, entertain her, and shelter her. Despite its grand, promising opening sequence filled with ambition and audacity, the main problem with "Drama/Mex", of course, is its callously exasperating narrative; jaundiced to its very core, it ends up going all over the place, as we now find Gonzalo attacking Chano, Jaime at the club, Fernanda running all over the place, and Mariana buying anything she can. Essentially, what starts out as a finely nuanced, audaciously handsome drama evolves into a frustrating imbroglio, as its familiar ending fails to unite its narrative threads, finally culminating happily yet with a profound feel—and, as odd as it may seem, such disaster can be pliantly interpreted; even appealingly. Indeed, "Drama/Mex" is not entirely with out its merit: Naranjo's mesmerizing camera work fits its milieu perfectly, and the fact that he first studies his characters before sending them to ruin is proof of its boundless self-confidence—all of which are perpetuated by the miraculous cast that, indeed, beautifully portray their dubious situations.