The Mexican Students Association in Sussex (MEXSAS)

presents

 

MEXICAN THURSDAYS [Cine-club]

Arts A103 @ 6:00 p.m.

 

Season III. New Bites of Mexican Realism

 

 

Thursday 14 th of February

Juan Carlos Rulfo

En El Hoyo / In the Pit (2006)

 

(In Spanish with English subtitles)

This is a powerful documentary about the personal struggles behind the construction of a massive elevated freeway. With lyricism and compassion, this film reveals the medieval nightmare underneath an ambitious utopian dream: Mexico City's Periferico Beltway, more than ten miles of elevated reinforced concrete, supported by massive towers, that has been planned to both soar above and link the city's densely gridlocked urban neighbourhoods. But while the roadway is a spectacular miracle of modern architectural design, it comes with a human cost.

For every bridge built, warns a Mexican proverb, the devil demands one soul. Even in contemporary Mexico, "any major construction project needs a soul in its foundation," agrees one of In the Pit's army of labourers tunnelling beneath the surface and scaling the perilous heights of La Ciudad to ensure that "the Second Deck" becomes a reality.

 

 

 

Thursday 21st of February

Francisco Vargas.

El Violin / The Violin (2005)

 

(Only Spanish audio)

Set in a small Mexican village during the uprisings of the seventies, the film portrays the tensions between the peasants and military in the Guerrero region. Don Plutarco, his son Genaro and his grandson Lucio live a double life: on one hand, they make a humble living as travelling musicians, and on the other hand they also collect supplies and ammunition for the guerrilla movement. Upon returning to their hometown from one of their journeys, they find their village has been overtaken by the army. The musicians flee to the sierra hills, forced to leave behind their stock of ammunition. Playing up his appearance as a harmless violin player, the quietly dignified Plutarco has a plan: charm the army captain with his music and visit his cornfield to secretly smuggle his hidden arms.

A tender and poignant drama shot in stunning black and white, The Violin is a beautiful story about a father's love for his family and the sacrifice of an unlikely hero.

 

 

 

 

Thursday 28th of March

Carlos Reygadas.

Batalla en el Cielo / Battle in Heaven (2005)

 

(In Spanish with English subtitles)

Marcos and his wife kidnap a baby for ransom money, but it goes tragically wrong when the infant dies. In another world is Ana, the daughter of the general he drives for, who prostitutes herself for pleasure. Marcos confesses his guilt to her in his troubled search for relief. And then finds himself on his knees amidst the multitude of believers moving slowly towards the Basilica in honour of the Lady of Guadalupe.

‘With relentless and ruminative deliberateness, Reygadas shows us a Mexico City that seems to be decaying from the inside out. […] The story, as it crawls toward its violent and desultory climax, is wilfully inconsequential. This is a pictorial experience that Reygadas has rooted in slummy, pulpy despair, making a movie that in the hands of other young directors (he's 33) would have certainly resulted in a work of sensationalism. Instead, Reygadas has made a sensationalist picture in which all the sensation is willfully dulled.’ Wesley Morris, boston.com.

 

 

 

 

Thursday 6th of March

Luis Mandoki.

Voces Inocentes / Innocent Voices (2004)

(In Spanish with English subtitles)

Based on the true story of screenwriter Oscar Torres’s embattled childhood, this is the poignant tale of Chava (Carlos Padilla), an eleven-year-old boy who suddenly becomes the "man of the house" after his father abandons the family in the middle of a civil war.
In El Salvador in the 1980s, the government's armed forces are already recruiting twelve year olds, rousting them out of their classes at the local middle school. If he is lucky, Chava has just one year of innocence left, one year before he, too, will be conscripted to fight the government’s battle against the peasant rebels of the FMLN. Chava’s life becomes a game of survival, not only from the bullets of the escalating war, but also from the dispiriting effects of daily violence.