Amanhecer Vermelho

La película es un suceso horrible que pasó en México, me hizo sentir desesperación, enojo, tristeza y pánico. La forma en la que la historia está narrada es muy inteligente! Se filmó la película con muy poco dinero y clandestinamente, la considero un must de cine mexicano, muy muy recomendable.

When I saw the film as it was released in the theaters, I thought it was a superb film. More than a decade later, a part of such awe is gone. The plot? A middle-class family undergoes the violent events happened in Tlatelolco, Mexico City, in 1968.

The sound recording and editing was most probably done by butchers. Clumsy ones. The firing sounds seem to be stolen from a Pink Panther cartoon episode. I suppose –though– that the budget was small, so I will not insist too much on it.

There is nonetheless some VERY good acting in here, performed by Héctor Bonilla, María Rojo and Demián Bichir. My highlight performance happens when Bonilla angrily addresses his sons at the family table, after arriving from work. Sadly, most of the other actors perform poorly (Bruno Bichir, although decently acting,is decidedly overshadowed by his brother). The pamphlet girl's acting is wooden and many other actors seemed to have been simply borrowed from a student theatrical company. The cops (judiciales) are almost a caricature and -even though they can be brutal in real life- suffer from overacting.

The scenery is flawless and honest. Lighting is OK, but nothing out of the ordinary. Some dialog lines are marvelously embellished and made "real" by Bonilla's and Rojo's delivery, although the dialog lines in general tend to sound kitschy, biased and overdone when dealing with political issues.

Recommended to those who want to analyze the evolution of the recent Mexican cinema and to evil cops who are looking forward into improving their verbal intimidation techniques.

i recently saw this movie again, and it just made me feel sick, because even though that actually happened 34 years ago, and we as a society think that so much has changed, you soon realize that it hasn't, because that could actually happen again in this day and age, and it actually has, of course we don't hear anything about it, as we didn't hear much about it back then, there's a scene in the movie, when the family after thinking the worst is over, sit around the tv to watch the news, and they are shocked to hear the news anchor reports about just a minor disturbance, with some injured and some dead, 34 years latter we still don't know the whole story, but what we do know is that it wasn't a minor disturbance, hundreds of students, most in their late teens or early twenty's where slaughtered like pigs in the middle of the street by the mexican army, that's the reason all student movement's are doomed to fail, because politicians who are supposed to be the ones looking after us don't think twice about murdering the innocent as long as they get to stay in power, a lot of people don't understand, and say "well they asked for it" or "what where they protesting", they where protesting a corrupt government that didn't think twice about doing what it did, there's some very violent scenes in the movie, but i don't think it was enough, i wish this movie was so raw and in your face that it would have been able to wake up everyone who is still living in the dream world.

Jorge Fons is one of the best movie directors in Mexico. His filmography is full of excellent stories, like "Caridad" y "El Callejón de los Milagros". But, in this case, the story touches every mexican person. This film was made underground, at a moment when democratic aperture in Mexico was only a dream. Everyone involved in it took a high risk, and won. Tha actors and producers made an excellent work. "Rojo Amanecer" is one of the reasons why we are proud of our weak film industry.

Very good article in today's (Oct. 3, 2008) LA Times re the massacre.

The "news peg" is the memorial March held in the capital on Oct 2, 2008.

They mention that Marcelo Ebrard ordered flags flown at half-mast, a major recognition of the event.

It covers the continuing problem of impunity.

It does not, however, mention events in Guadalajara.

The article skims through various attempts to investigate and fix culpability over the years.

It also mentions calls from Amensty International and other human rights organizations for investigations and justice.