Mexico

This vividly stylized, broodingly intense early Mexican sound melodrama by Juan Bustillo Oro hinges on an audacious flashback structure. When an ailing monk recognizes a new brother at his cloister, he becomes deranged and attacks him. Dos monjes recounts the men’s tragic shared past once from the point of view of each, heightening the contrasts between the two accounts with visual flourishes drawn from the language of German expressionism, including camera work by avant-garde photographer Agustín Jiménez.Read More »

Dolores Del Rio plays the indigenous daughter of a prostitute, and nobody in her village will buy the flowers she sells because of her family’s sordid history. The corrupt racist local merchant whose lecherous advances she keeps turning down demands that she pay her debts in full by tomorrow or else he’ll take her beloved little piglet! It is one of two Mexican films ever to win the Palme d’Or (the other being Buñuel’s Viridiana).Read More »

The gunfighter El Topo (“The Mole”) and his young son ride through a desert to a village, whose inhabitants have been massacred. Bandits are nearby, torturing and killing the survivors. El Topo rescues a woman (Mara), who leads him on a mission to find and defeat the four master gunmen of the desert. Leaving his son with a group of monks, El Topo and Mara complete the mission, accompanied by a mysterious woman in black. The women leave El Topo wounded in the desert, where he is found by a clan of deformed people who take him to the remote cavern where they live. Awakening years later, he goes with a dwarf woman to a nearby town, promising to dig a tunnel through which the cave-dwellers can escape. They find the town run by a vicious sheriff and home to a bizarre religious cult. El Topo’s son, now a man, is a monk in the town. The completion of the tunnel leads El Topo, the townspeople, and the cave-dwellers to a bloody and tragic end.Read More »

Synopsis:
Although the film is set specifically in 1903, its atmosphere and tension may be more generally characterised as “before the revolution”. The event in question is the Mexican revolution of the years 1910–17, which overthrew the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz, under whom the population had become even more impoverished. Las vueltas del Citrillo is the name of a shabby bar where the socially disinherited drink and exchange incredible stories and fantasies. Individuals with no future or even present meet here to drown their lives in alcohol and tell their tales of the dead and apparitions. In the atmosphere of hallucination and drunkenness, however, a central “sober” story of love, jealousy and betrayal also unfolds.Read More »

Quote:
A Christlike figure wanders through bizarre, grotesque scenarios filled with religious and sacrilegious imagery. He meets a mystical guide who introduces him to seven wealthy and powerful individuals, each representing a planet in the solar system. These seven, along with the protagonist, the guide and the guide’s assistant, divest themselves of their worldly goods and form a group of nine who will seek out the Holy Mountain, in order to displace the gods who live there and become immortal.Read More »

Francisco is rich, strict on principles, and still a bachelor. He meets Gloria by accident, and is intent on marrying her and courts her until she agrees. Now he is a dedicated husband, but his passion starts to exhibit disturbing traits.Read More »

Plot Summary
A Christlike figure wanders through bizarre, grotesque scenarios filled with religious and sacrilegious imagery. He meets a mystical guide who introduces him to seven wealthy and powerful individuals, each representing a planet in the solar system. These seven, along with the protagonist, the guide and the guide’s assistant, divest themselves of their worldly goods and form a group of nine who will seek out the Holy Mountain, in order to displace the gods who live there and become immortal.Read More »

Plot Summary
The gunfighter El Topo (“The Mole”) and his young son ride through a desert to a village, whose inhabitants have been massacred. Bandits are nearby, torturing and killing the survivors. El Topo rescues a woman (Mara), who leads him on a mission to find and defeat the four master gunmen of the desert. Leaving his son with a group of monks, El Topo and Mara complete the mission, accompanied by a mysterious woman in black. The women leave El Topo wounded in the desert, where he is found by a clan of deformed people who take him to the remote cavern where they live.Read More »

Quote:
Ana, an educated art historian, and Aurelia, lone mother of two, are two women in trouble, one with the law and the other with drug trafficking thugs. Their paths cross as Ana asks if she can get a ride with Aurelia to Cancun as both attempt to escape their pasts. This is in the backdrop of a vicious serial killer that has murdered over 250 women and haunts all women in Mexico. Without a Trace is a wonderful road movie about the two women as they try to change their lives on their own in the shadow of a patriarchal society. Novaro creates a motherly environment as mother Aurelia breast feeds and nurtures her little baby, but also a tough femme fatale atmosphere with the women drinking beer in different bars. These two aspects of the women are brought to the screen with strong drama and comedy as the women venture for something better. In the end, Novaro creates a wonderful cinematic experience that both entertains and enlightens the audience.Read More »