Film ReviewsSkin Deep
Jun 26, 2015 Anchorage Press
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Güeros, the Mexican film by Alonso Ruiz Palacios, takes the viewer on a hell of a ride along with the four protagonists through the Periférico or peripheral ring of highways encircling Mexico City (known as "el DF" for District Federal). With over 27 million people, el DF is sprawling and vast. The road trip that weaves in and out of neighborhoods and suburbs doesn't have to leave the area in order to take viewers and protagonists on a journey through the long history of revolution, race and cultural identity in contemporary Mexico. Like many metaphorical journeys, the destination is ultimately one's self.
Race identity and racism are folded into the class system of Mexico, where the color of skin affords disproportionate advantages to some at the expense of others. The word "Güero" or "Güera" is used to describe persons of light skin, light hair, and/or light eyes. The importance of skin color is vociferous throughout the culture, in its music, humor, storytelling, etc. As it turns out, uses of terms like "Güero" or "Blanco" for light skinned people, and their counterparts for dark skinned people like "Moreno," "Prieto," "Negro," are largely contextual; it all depends on how and when it's used and by whom. The film does a great job at showing this when at some instances, "Güero" is a compliment, and at others an insult. The dichotomy is this, on the one hand if someone is "Güero", he or she is likely to be of a higher class, thus being called "Güero" is a compliment. On the other hand, the word itself likely comes from "Huero"-a term applied to eggs that are non-fertile and don't yield any benefit. A "huevo huero" or failed egg, gets paler with time. When this meaning of the word is applied then the resulting insult is that a "Güero" is a dud of a person.
The plot of the story in Güeros is based on the 1999 student strike at the UNAM (National Autonomous University of Mexico), which is Latin America's largest university and has been pivotal to social and political movements since its inception. The 1999 student strike, not only straddled the 20th and 21st centuries, it lasted 292 days and was successful. For that entire year, the country sat on tenterhooks lest there be a repeat of the 1968 student massacre. Tenoch Huerta plays Federico who goes by Sombra or Shadow. Sombra is from Veracruz and is a student at the UNAM. He's dark, handsome and has the soul of a troubadour but also carries with him the insecurities that come from being of a lower class and having darker skin than Ana (Ilse Salas), with whom he's deeply in love. Ana is from a rich family, she's smart, articulate and a born leader, but even her skin color can't protect her from the misogynist comments that are hurled at her as she speaks out. Sombra and his friend Santos (Leonardo Ortizgris) are not like Ana, they're not part of the movement, nor do they transfer to other schools, they simply live in limbo as the strike goes on. They live in squalor, stealing electricity from their neighbors, and not seeing the point of leaving their digs. Then along comes Tomás (Sebastián Aguirre), Sombra's younger brother who, after getting into mischief one time too many in Veracruz, is sent to el DF by his struggling mother. The relationship between the brothers deepens as the film unfolds, and even though Tomás is Güero, and it seems everyone comments of the difference in their skin color, they share a home, a point of origin and genetic bond.
Tomás is obsessed with a singer from a generation past. The fictitious Epigmenio Cruz' music was so moving that it was rumored to have made Bob Dylan cry. When Tomás discovers that Cruz is hospitalized and dying in destitution, the gang begin its search for the music maker. As each character hears the music through an old-style Walkman, their obsession with finding the singer grows. Ruiz Palacios foments the mystery of the music further by using complete silence as the characters put on the headsets providing intimacy for the characters and a respite from the insanity of the strike and pandemonium of the city.
The dynamics of the social criticisms in the film are not so much contradictory to one another as they are simply parallel: ancient and modern, black and white, rural and urban, rich and poor, cacophony and harmony exist side by side. Güeros provides space for this type of dialogue delivered through beautiful prose, colloquialisms, music and humor.
Ruiz Palacios takes advantage of creative cinematic tools. Apart from the obvious grey scale contrasts created by shooting in black and white, he also uses imaginative camera work to create tension and immediacy. The sound design is thought through and parallels the concept of the film nicely. Ruiz Palacios uses the music of Augustin Lara to bring an idyllic Mexico into the chaos of a contentious one. The bitter sweet irony in this is that Lara's music is now ubiquitous and has been usurped by the Mexican mass media, often portrayed as simple, romantic ballads with cheesy orchestration; however, at the time that Lara wrote them, from the 1940s on, he pushed the boundaries of racial inequities by writing key pieces of his repertoire for the voice of Toña la Negra, an unknown Afro-Mexican singer from Veracruz. Subsequently, Toña la Negra landed some film roles, but even though her presence on the screen is undeniable, she was relegated, like other dark-skinned actors, to secondary and undeveloped roles. After her death in 1982, her music was almost never heard outside of Veracruz and certain musical circles. Luckily, there has been a resurgence of the original recordings and today, Toña la Negra can even be heard on Pandora.
Ruiz Palacios' finely focused juxtaposition of places representing time and concept, in this case el DF and Veracruz, dovetail nicely into the personal journeys of each of the protagonist. At its final destination Güeros is about arriving at the present, armed with the past and with the power to change the future.
Güeros plays at Bear Tooth at 5:30 p.m. on Monday, June 29.
Race identity and racism are folded into the class system of Mexico, where the color of skin affords disproportionate advantages to some at the expense of others. The word "Güero" or "Güera" is used to describe persons of light skin, light hair, and/or light eyes. The importance of skin color is vociferous throughout the culture, in its music, humor, storytelling, etc. As it turns out, uses of terms like "Güero" or "Blanco" for light skinned people, and their counterparts for dark skinned people like "Moreno," "Prieto," "Negro," are largely contextual; it all depends on how and when it's used and by whom. The film does a great job at showing this when at some instances, "Güero" is a compliment, and at others an insult. The dichotomy is this, on the one hand if someone is "Güero", he or she is likely to be of a higher class, thus being called "Güero" is a compliment. On the other hand, the word itself likely comes from "Huero"-a term applied to eggs that are non-fertile and don't yield any benefit. A "huevo huero" or failed egg, gets paler with time. When this meaning of the word is applied then the resulting insult is that a "Güero" is a dud of a person.
The plot of the story in Güeros is based on the 1999 student strike at the UNAM (National Autonomous University of Mexico), which is Latin America's largest university and has been pivotal to social and political movements since its inception. The 1999 student strike, not only straddled the 20th and 21st centuries, it lasted 292 days and was successful. For that entire year, the country sat on tenterhooks lest there be a repeat of the 1968 student massacre. Tenoch Huerta plays Federico who goes by Sombra or Shadow. Sombra is from Veracruz and is a student at the UNAM. He's dark, handsome and has the soul of a troubadour but also carries with him the insecurities that come from being of a lower class and having darker skin than Ana (Ilse Salas), with whom he's deeply in love. Ana is from a rich family, she's smart, articulate and a born leader, but even her skin color can't protect her from the misogynist comments that are hurled at her as she speaks out. Sombra and his friend Santos (Leonardo Ortizgris) are not like Ana, they're not part of the movement, nor do they transfer to other schools, they simply live in limbo as the strike goes on. They live in squalor, stealing electricity from their neighbors, and not seeing the point of leaving their digs. Then along comes Tomás (Sebastián Aguirre), Sombra's younger brother who, after getting into mischief one time too many in Veracruz, is sent to el DF by his struggling mother. The relationship between the brothers deepens as the film unfolds, and even though Tomás is Güero, and it seems everyone comments of the difference in their skin color, they share a home, a point of origin and genetic bond.
Tomás is obsessed with a singer from a generation past. The fictitious Epigmenio Cruz' music was so moving that it was rumored to have made Bob Dylan cry. When Tomás discovers that Cruz is hospitalized and dying in destitution, the gang begin its search for the music maker. As each character hears the music through an old-style Walkman, their obsession with finding the singer grows. Ruiz Palacios foments the mystery of the music further by using complete silence as the characters put on the headsets providing intimacy for the characters and a respite from the insanity of the strike and pandemonium of the city.
The dynamics of the social criticisms in the film are not so much contradictory to one another as they are simply parallel: ancient and modern, black and white, rural and urban, rich and poor, cacophony and harmony exist side by side. Güeros provides space for this type of dialogue delivered through beautiful prose, colloquialisms, music and humor.
Ruiz Palacios takes advantage of creative cinematic tools. Apart from the obvious grey scale contrasts created by shooting in black and white, he also uses imaginative camera work to create tension and immediacy. The sound design is thought through and parallels the concept of the film nicely. Ruiz Palacios uses the music of Augustin Lara to bring an idyllic Mexico into the chaos of a contentious one. The bitter sweet irony in this is that Lara's music is now ubiquitous and has been usurped by the Mexican mass media, often portrayed as simple, romantic ballads with cheesy orchestration; however, at the time that Lara wrote them, from the 1940s on, he pushed the boundaries of racial inequities by writing key pieces of his repertoire for the voice of Toña la Negra, an unknown Afro-Mexican singer from Veracruz. Subsequently, Toña la Negra landed some film roles, but even though her presence on the screen is undeniable, she was relegated, like other dark-skinned actors, to secondary and undeveloped roles. After her death in 1982, her music was almost never heard outside of Veracruz and certain musical circles. Luckily, there has been a resurgence of the original recordings and today, Toña la Negra can even be heard on Pandora.
Ruiz Palacios' finely focused juxtaposition of places representing time and concept, in this case el DF and Veracruz, dovetail nicely into the personal journeys of each of the protagonist. At its final destination Güeros is about arriving at the present, armed with the past and with the power to change the future.
Güeros plays at Bear Tooth at 5:30 p.m. on Monday, June 29.