For his sophomore effort, Drama/Mex, writer-director Gerardo Naranjo (Malachance) juxtaposes three back-to-back stories, set in the once lush and exclusive - now over-commercialized and garish - resort town of Acapulco, over the course of the same long, hot night. Naranjo mounts an experimental narrative structure, with each successive tale set backward in time just prior to the end of the last story - a "relay-style" structural experimentation that mirrors and recalls Fernando Mereilles's City
of God). The first tale involves a thief Chano (Emilio Valdés who crops up and threatens the sanctity of ex-girlfriend Fernanda's (Diana García) relationship with Gonzalo (Juan Pablo Castañeda), even breaking into her house to win her back. In the second story, someone tips Gonzalo off that Fernanda has been seen kissing Chano in a crowded restaurant. In desperation, Gonzalo hires a mariachi band and serenades Fernanda outside of her house. The third tale concerns Jaime (Fernando Becerril) who, after lifting the company payroll and using part of it to rent a beachfront property, contemplates suicide - until a relationship with an equally dishonest fifteen-year-old runway and scam artist, Tigrillo (Miriana Moro) grants him a new lease on life. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi
This relentlessly downbeat portrait of numerous troubled characters is ultimately too derivative and familiar for it to connect with art house audiences despite some effective moments and good performances by its mainly youthful cast.
This morally-ambiguous adventure's cleverly-concealed, parallel powder keg plotlines are sufficiently compelling to keep you riveted to these loco losers' predicaments till the bitter end.
Drama/Mex has an overheated plot, but it plays out at a low boil, mainly because Naranjo is more interested in the subtle stresses of human interaction than in shrill desperation.
This morally-ambiguous adventure's cleverly-concealed, parallel powder keg plotlines are sufficiently compelling to keep you riveted to these loco losers' predicaments till the bitter end.
All the edgy style in the world canâ(TM)t camouflage a black hole. Drama/Mex turns loose these insistently shallow characters and provides no insight into their bad behavior.
Writer/director Naranjo is a talent worth keeping an eye on -- provided he can find his own idiom and less predictable subject matter. And it's impossible to take your eyes off the ravishing Garcia in her debut.
The worst part about the awful dialogue said by most of these characters is that it's the most realistic I've seen so far in a Mexican film. The characters fail to have any depth or insight into their lives. They should've just stayed with one of the stories, since the director was unable to fully tell any of the two
at once.
April 1, 2008
Quinto Wallight
Super Reviewer
I found the next Wong Kar-wai, and he's a Mexican! The most exciting new filmmaker I've seen in a long long time. He wears his Godard and Cassavetes on his sleeve and mixes it with machismo, sand, futbol, and alcohol. Puro mexicano.
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