{"id":1134,"date":"2015-07-05T22:41:48","date_gmt":"2015-07-05T22:41:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/mediatico\/?p=1134"},"modified":"2015-07-24T10:51:02","modified_gmt":"2015-07-24T10:51:02","slug":"gueros-alonso-ruizpalacios-mexico-2014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/mediatico\/2015\/07\/05\/gueros-alonso-ruizpalacios-mexico-2014\/","title":{"rendered":"G\u00fceros (Alonso Ruizpalacios, Mexico, 2014)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Olivia Cosentino<\/a> is a \u00a0MA\/PhD Student in Latin American Literatures and Cultures in the Spanish and Portuguese Department at the Ohio State University, where she is also studying for an\u00a0MA in Film and Media Studies. Her\u00a0research interests include youth and gender studies in post-epoca de oro Mexican cinema.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

G\u00fceros<\/em> is an incredible debut by director Alonso Ruizpalacios. The film has received considerable hype both at home and abroad, winning\u00a05 Mexican Ariel Awards several\u00a0weeks ago (including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Cinematography) and earning over 12 prizes on\u00a0the festival circuit<\/a>\u00a0in 2014, notably Best First Feature from the Berlin International Film Festival and Best Cinematography from the Tribeca Film Festival. A quick plot summary: Tom\u00e1s (Sebasti\u00e1n Aguirre) is sent by his mother to spend a month in Mexico City with his brother, Federico (Tenoch Huerta), nicknamed Sombra. He and his roommate, Santos (Leonardo Ortizgris), fill their days with card tricks, cutting out people from the newspaper to add to their fridge collage and feeble attempts to work on their theses as the 1999 student strike at the UNAM (National Autonomous University of Mexico) continues. The two oblige Tom\u00e1s\u2019 wishes to pay his last respects to rock legend, Epigmenio Cruz (Alfonso Charpener), who is reportedly dying in a hospital. Their search for Cruz takes the boys to all corners of the capital, including the UNAM where they pick up Sombra\u2019s love interest, the student revolutionary leader Ana (Ilse Salas).<\/p>\n

Ruizpalacios\u2019 film falls into a greater trajectory, or should I say inundation, of contemporary Mexican films whose narratives center upon youthful protagonists. The list is endless, but I make the obligatory mention of the critically acclaimed Y tu mam\u00e1 tambi\u00e9n <\/em>(Alfonso Cuar\u00f3n, 2001), (central to the\u00a0Mexican film industry’s critical revival), as well as Mil nubes de paz cercan el cielo, amor, jam\u00e1s acabar\u00e1s de ser amor\u00a0<\/em>(Juli\u00e1n Hern\u00e1ndez, 2003), Temporada de patos <\/em>(Fernando Eimbcke, 2004), Lake Tahoe <\/em>(Fernando Embicke, 2008) and Voy a explotar<\/em> (Gerardo Naranjo, 2009), all of which share either aesthetic and\/or thematic similarities to G\u00fceros<\/em>.<\/p>\n

G\u00fceros<\/em> is intensely sensorial, like the work of Hern\u00e1ndez and Eimbcke, and delights in cinematographic extremes. Ruizpalacios favors close-ups of facial expressions (a technique that is notably also crucial to the aesthetics of Argentine filmmaker Ra\u00fal Perrone\u2019s 2013 black and white youth skater film, P3ND3JO5<\/em>) and extreme long takes and long shots\u00a0of landscape filmed with a static camera which allow the audiences\u2019 eyes to wander and wonder.<\/p>\n

\"P3ND3J05\"<\/a><\/p>\n

P3ND3JO5\u00a0<\/em>(Ra\u00fal Perrone 2013)<\/p>\n

\"gueroslongshotlongtake\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

G\u00fceros<\/em><\/i><\/p>\n

\"laketahoels\"<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Lake Tahoe\u00a0<\/em>(Fernando Eimbcke 2008)<\/p>\n

The visual extremes echo the emotional highs and lows that Mexican youth, especially those in crisis, face on a daily basis. G\u00fceros<\/em> ambitiously represents Sombra\u2019s recurring panic attacks; Ruizpalacios emphasizes Sombra\u2019s labored breathing that overtakes the soundtrack as he drags endlessly on a cigarette. Later, a blinding white light turns into a high pitched vibration as Sombra sees feathers raining from the sky. It is terrifying yet tantalizing to the senses, and clearly torturous for Sombra who believes he is going crazy.<\/p>\n

Thematically, G\u00fceros<\/em> underscores the confusing mixture of emotions (melancholy, stress, freedom and joy) that\u00a0coming-of-age brings. As they are stopped in the inevitable DF traffic on the highway, Ana asks, \u201cWould anyone know if we died?\u201d In response, Sombra turns off the engine and the two revel in their rebellion despite the unbearable din of honking that quickly follows (confirming that if they had died, other cars would take notice of the inconvenience). It is important to note that in all of the youth films mentioned above, parents are rarely seen and play cursory roles at best. Youthful crisis is perhaps predicated by the lack of parental involvement and the collapse of the nuclear family, leaving youth to navigate the world with only their friends, lovers or siblings at their side.<\/p>\n

Reviews<\/a> of G\u00fceros<\/em> are quick to mention\u00a0French New Wave\u00a0influences (because every film wants to pay homage to the French, right?). The French New Wave movement was the first to consider youth as a subject matter and to take it\u00a0seriously \u2013 demonstrated by the canonical The 400 Blows<\/em> (Francois Truffaut, 1959) or Breathless <\/em>(Jean-Luc Godard, 1960) \u2013 and furthermore, popularized strategies like filming on location in city streets, long takes and using non-professional actors as ways of coping with a small budget. G\u00fceros<\/em> is filmed almost exclusively without sets \u2013 the exception being Sombra and Santos\u2019 flat \u2013 and underscores the diverse urban geography of the capital city. G\u00fceros<\/em> quickly becomes a project in cinematographic cartography as the film subdivides by location \u2013 Sur<\/em> (South), Poniente <\/em>(West), Ciudad Universitaria <\/em>(University City), Centro <\/em>(Center), Oriente <\/em>(East) \u2013 following the protagonists on their \u201croad trip\u201d within Mexico City. The protagonists and audience are exposed to the ins and outs of chilango<\/em><\/a> life \u2013 a pulquer\u00eda<\/em><\/a>, a snobby film premiere party, the empty fish market, the UNAM, a public hospital, a vegetable farm and the Chapultepec Zoo. New Wave directors were also notorious for irony and sarcasm, which is certainly present in G\u00fceros<\/em>. At the film premiere where the characters rub elbows with all the beautiful people of Mexico City, Sombra rants about the \u201cputo cine mexicano\u201d [effing Mexican cinema] and scoffs, saying that anyone who films in black and white thinks that they are really<\/em> making cinema (Ruizpalacios gives the audience a wink-wink).<\/p>\n

The title of the movie itself is consciously tongue-in-cheek. G\u00fceros <\/em>opens with a definition of \u201cg\u00fcero\u201d as 1) \u201cDe cabellos rubios\u201d [Blonde-haired] and 2) \u201cDe cutis claro\u201d [Light-skinned]. As the film is in black and white, it is not immediately obvious who is blonde, but this suggests that the term g\u00fcero refers to more than just complexion or hair color. I take this to be an implicit commentary on the racial politics in Mexico which bind race with social class. Santos takes offense at being called a g\u00fcero<\/em> by the security guard at the ritzy party and demands to know who looks like a g\u00fcero<\/em>, grabbing Sombra and yelling, \u201cDoes this look like a g\u00fcero to you?\u201d Both Santos and Ana joke with Sombra, separately asking him why he turned out so prieto<\/em> [swarthy, dark-skinned] when his brother is such a g\u00fcerito<\/em>. We also finally realize that Epigmenio\u2019s album is called Los G\u00fceros<\/em>, but the opportunity to problematize the racialized term is not lost on the film.<\/p>\n

\"guerossombracu\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Why has this film been successful? Put simply, G\u00fceros <\/em>is smart. Incredible sound design, a well-written script with laugh out loud funny moments (for both me and the Mexicans in the audience), beautiful cinematography that dazzles, impeccable casting and an honest representation of Mexico City that lacks the gloss that characterizes much of contemporary, neoliberal Mexican cinema aimed at pleasing (and putting blinders on) upper-middle class and foreign audiences (Sexo, pudor y l\u00e1grimas <\/i>[Sex, Shame & Tears<\/i>, Antonio Serrano, 1999],\u00a0Cansada de besar sapos <\/i>[Tired of Kissing Frogs<\/i>, Jorge Col\u00f3n, 2006],\u00a0LuTo [<\/i>Katina Medina Mora, 2013],\u00a0A la mala <\/i>[Pedro Pablo Ibarra, 2015]). G\u00fceros<\/em> has something to say: \u201cSer joven y no ser revolucionario es una contradicci\u00f3n\u201d [to be young and to not be a revolutionary is a contradiction] and it is not afraid to say it, both on promotional materials as well as diegetically in scenes of the UNAM strike. I hope G\u00fceros <\/em>is an indication of the kind of quality cinema that we can expect from Ruizpalacios and other newbie Mexican filmmakers in the future.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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