Between Oct. 2 and 10 — and, as quickly as as quickly as extra, in particular person — the Hola México film pageant returns to l. a.. The event prides itself on being the most important outdoors Aztec lands devoted fully to the cinema of america’ southern neighbor.
This 14th version of the pageant will current an official program of function movies, both Mexican productions or co-productions subtitled in English. that focus on one nation’s output distinguishes Hola from the la Latino film pageant (LALIFF) and the El GuadaLAjara film pageant (GLAFF).
however although all of the choices in Hola México originate from the identical nation, pageant founder and director Samuel Douek provides a lineup that is extensively diverse when it entails themes, genres and the genders and worldviews of the filmmakers. Douek’s selection for his pageant’s Sunday opening, “Lecciones para canallas” (whose English translation is “classes for Scoundrels”) illustrates that mission.
The comedy arouses curiosity in consequence of starring position it provides to Joaquín Cosío, who, collectively with being extensively recognized for performances in widespread Mexican movies comparable to “Matando Cabos” and “El Infierno,” has develop to be acquainted to U.S. audiences for his roles in extreme-profile Hollywood productions simply like the James Bond film “Quantum of Solace” and “The Suicide Squad,” as properly as to inside the acclaimed Netflix collection “Narcos: México.”
A persuasively naturalistic actor with a sturdy persona, Cosío in “Lecciones” performs soiled Barry (an apparent nod to Clint Eastwood’s soiled Harry), a con artist whose moral shabbiness is offset by his booming charisma. inside the film he unexpectedly teams up collectively with his daughter, Jenny (Danae Reynaud), whom he hasn’t seen since she was a baby, as his would-be associate in crime.
Director and co-author Gustavo Moheno (“Eddie Reynolds and the steel Angels”) fashions an entertaining thriller with perverse edges that nonetheless falls brief as a end result of its hazard-averse screenplay fails to establish true emotional connections amongst the numerous characters. Even so, the film breaks the mildew of inconsequential romantic comedies that abound in Mexico at the second. will in all likelihood be screened on Sunday as an aspect of a spot ceremony that begins at 4:30 p.m. and contains an after-social gathering on the Montalbán Theater.
on the completely different finish of the pageant’s lineup is “El diablo entre las piernas” (“devil Between the Legs”), the most modern function film (2019) by legendary filmmaker Arturo Ripstein, for whom a class of its personal ought to be created. At seventy eight, the coach stays to be as irreverent as ever: although his protagonists are an aged couple (excellently performed by Sylvia Pasquel and Alejandro Suárez), he refuses to soften his proposal — in distinction to what German director Michael Haneke did in his geriatric love fable “Amour” — exhibiting his characters actively involved in a poisonous relationship, full with sexual situations and nude scenes.
“El diablo entre las piernas,” by Arturo Ripstein.
(Hola México film pageant)
Filming in black-and-white, as he has finished often all by his profession, Ripstein as quickly as as quickly as extra attracts on a script written by his collaborator and life associate, Paz Alicia Garciadiego, in creating a sordid story spiked with black humor. Some viewers will discover its relentless probing of macho sexuality and feminine submission uncomfortable to look at. nonetheless, inside the midst of their intentional excesses, Ripstein and Garciadiego discover your self reaching a curious stability between the characters, sustaining performances as dangerous as they’re spectacular, and in a mise-en-scène whose virtuosity permits us to face a film that is each demanding and prolonged (almost two and a half hours). it ought to computer screen Oct. 6 at 6 p.m. on the Montalbán Theater.
Hola México’s function film lineup contains two dramas that painting tragedies arising from the chaos generated by drug trafficking and the battle on medicine and that, inside the trend of “Miss Bala” (2011), “Rosario Tijeras” (2005) and “Maria, stuffed with Grace” (2004), give consideration to feminine characters.
In “Manto de gemas” (“robe of Gems”), director and screenwriter Natalia López Gallardo — a Bolivian based mostly in Mexico for twenty years who’s the spouse and collaborator of famend filmmaker Carlos Reygadas — adopts a gendered perspective in direction of her story of three women residing in a desolate rural space: rich housewife Isabel (Nailea Norvind); her home worker María (Antonia Olivares); and the police agent Roberta (Aida Roa).
Norvind, famend amongst Latin audiences for her appearances in Eighties and ’90s telenovelas, has participated in a quantity of fascinating impartial film initiatives recently. right here, she reveals histrionic abilities as a mom of two youngsters, just recently separated from her husband, who immediately turns into obsessive about the look for her worker’s lacking sister.
María provides with that drama whereas working undercover for a gaggle of drug traffickers, whereas Roberta faces the likelihood that her teenage son belongs to the identical authorized circle, as an aspect of a maelstrom of crime that López Gallardo handles at occasions with a pretty direct narrative trend, however which on completely different occasions she renders with allegorical pictures and an inventive method that is simply not solely accessible.
Be that as a end result of it might, the film stands out not solely for its impeccable workmanship and good performances however in addition for the method whereby whereby it presents the devastating penalties of the drug wars with out depicting graphic violence. will in all likelihood be screened Oct. 4 at 5:15 p.m. at Regal L.A. dwell.
“La Civil,” by the Belgium-based mostly Romanian author-director Teodora Mihai, additionally focuses on a housewife separated from her husband. simply like Isabel, Cielo (brilliantly portrayed by Arcelia Ramírez) areas her life in hazard to hint the whereabouts of a lacking particular person — her teenage daughter, who has been kidnapped by a cartel in northern Mexico.
“La Civil,” directed by Teodora Mihai.
(Hola México film pageant)
nonetheless, in distinction to the character in “robe of Gems,” who aspires to be a white savior, Cielo is a lady of modest means who takes even better risks by intently following the criminals and altering into an informant for the navy. although her adventures in the end stress credulity, by her script — impressed by exact occasions — Mihai manages to fully enmesh the viewer in a narrative that mixes social drama with thriller, espionage and vigilante parts. It by no means flags regardless of its 2½-hour working time. will in all likelihood be screened Oct. 7 at 6 p.m. on the Montalbán Theatre.
lastly, Hola México resumes its Nocturne part, devoted to incursions into the unbelievable, testifying to the advances inside the style contained in the Mexican enterprise. that is most clear in “Huesera,” one other feminine-authored film, directed by Michelle Garza and written by Abia Castillo, with a feminine main position that resorts to a considerably complicated and by no means solely new symbolism of motherhood as a style of curse. although that theme evokes Hollywood movies like “Rosemary’s baby,” Garza’s film relies upon on a collection of particular circumstances and novel twists to amass its personal id.
Valeria (magnificently performed by newcomer Natalia Solián) is a youthful married lady who has managed to get pregnant after a quantity of failed makes an try and who initially finds herself topic to the dictates of the patriarchy strengthened by the women of her circle of family members, in accordance with the scope of a Latin American machismo that is simply not restricted to or enforced solely by males.
however Valeria is slowly liberating herself from these bonds, even when it entails sexual id. The flashbacks that current her as an adolescent punk rocker are offset by her current devotion to the Virgin of Guadalupe and her subsequent makes an try to free herself of the curse that afflicts her with the assist of some healers.
although that is her debut film, Garza has heaps to do with the great efficiency of the lead actress, and her clear mastery of cinematographic language permits her to shake up viewers with out the should resort to extravagant seen sources. The particular outcomes, backed up by surprising sound bites, by no means cease to amaze. It’s being screened on Oct. 7 at 9.30 p.m. on the Montalbán Theater.
the identical part contains one other film that instructions consideration, extra for the idea it takes on than for the outcomes it achieves, although these will not be negligible. “Satanic Hispanics” is a style of horror anthology movies which might even be primarily irregular, with a narrator on the center who tells tales which might even be disconnected from every completely different thematically and are united simply by belonging to the school of concern.
The approach lets us uncover or rediscover the work of 5 directors who’re already terribly widespread amongst staunch horror followers and who will not be all of Aztec origin: Argentines Alejandro Brugués (“Juan of the ineffective”) and Demián Rugna (“Terrified”), Mexican American Mike Mendez (“large Ass Spider!”), Cuban American Eduardo Sánchez (“The Blair Witch undertaking”) and Mexican Canadian Gigi Saul Guerrero (“tradition Shock”).
A scene from the horror film “Huesera”.
(Hola México film pageant)
every filmmaker directs thought of one of many 5 episodes supplied, almost always in Spanish and every displaying his or her personal trend. although the alternation between the comic and the “onerous” points of the style imply that every the would not circulation collectively fully, the cultural parts that always infiltrate the tales give all of the film a terribly particular character that overcomes the plain funds limitations. there might even be even a quantity of particular-outcomes nice shock. Wait till you see the creepy illustration of l. a. Santa Muerte, a deity that drug cartels have adopted as their patron “saint.” will in all likelihood be screened Oct. eight at 9.30 p.m. on the Montalbán Theater.
The 2022 version of the Hola México film pageant will embrace better than 20 function movies and 20 brief movies from the Tomorrow’s Filmmakers at the second program.
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