History of Mexican cinema

Some days ago, I tried to explain the history of Mexican cinema to two friends, one British and one French. It was hard, but from my perspective, ignorant and humble opinion, I came up with an age classification:

• pre-1968 or the so-called «Golden Age»: This era is characterised by a wide range of topics and experimentation. Thoughtful scripts, but also some movies framed within Mexican nationalism and some others even indoctrination. However, overall they are not so bad and actually, they reflect a Mexico that is way far gone, not only physically but ideologically or culturally. It is called the Golden Age not only because of the quality of the movies but also the amount of movies and genres. Comedy was well represented by famous figures such as Chabelo, Tintan, Cantinflas, Resortes, and even Viruta and Capulina. Drama was well represented with famous figures such as Pedro Infante, Dolores del Río, María Félix, Pedro Armendariz, Emilio Fernández, Sara García, Fernando Soto, María Eugenia Llamas, among several others, and movies that revolutionised cinema not only in Mexico but in the world with Flor Silvestre (1943), María Candelaria (1943), Enamorada (1946), The Pepe el Toro trilogy (Nosotros los pobres (1948), Ustedes los ricos (1948), Pepe el Toro (1953)), Los Olvidados (1950) or El rebozo de Soledad (1952). In the 60s, the Golden Age was transformed by colour movies (to some extent), and two genres explored before but not extensively were added to the menu of Mexican movies. Horror and Sci-fi (really more fiction, or even fantasy than science). Wrestler heroes or villains fighting monsters or crime to the rhythm of surf music, and supported by super futuristic computers and «Batman-like» cars (you know, those old Cadillacs), were a common topic. Cult movies such as El Vampiro (1957), La nave de los monstruos (1960), Santo contra las mujeres vampiro (1962), El ángel exterminador (1962) or Hasta el viento tiene miedo (1967) inspired draculas, horror films, western movies or even sci-fi in the entire planet onwards. 
• post-1968 or the Seventies: but as we say in Spanish, everything that goes up eventually must fall. Hollywood got stronger and better. Europe was partially recovered from the WW2. And Mexico…. well, there is something called the Mexican Miracle, which not surprisingly coincides with the Golden Age of cinema. Quoting Wikipedia, the Mexican miracle «is a term used to refer to the country's inward-looking development strategy that produced sustained economic growth» from 1940 to 1970. So, after the end of the 60s, the production of movies suffered a collapse and not only the number of movies was reduced, but the genre was not varied at all, and the few movies that were blockbusters in cinema focused on the topics that were more popular at the end of the 60s: Horror and sci-fi. So the Mexican cinema is full of famous Mexican wrestlers, such as El Santo, Tinieblas, Aluxe, El Rayo de Jalisco, Mil Máscaras or Blue Demon, fighting monsters, vampires, martians, villains, and so on, and also with horror movies such as El libro de piedra (1969), La Horripilante bestia humana (1969), La noche de los 1000 gatos (1972), Más negro que la noche (1974), or Satánico pandemonium, better known as the Sexorcista (1975). This last movie, indirectly, also opened a new genre that destroyed Mexican Cinema making it almost repulsive: The famous ficheras cinema.
• Cine de Ficheras (escorts that convince a man to drink, and in exchange, they receive a token [ficha] per beverage that could be interchanged for money at the end of the day) (1975 ish to the end of 1980s): Also known in English as a Mexican sex comedy, is a genre that really is not funny, it is very sexual but not really erotic, and to be honest could have been porn except that the crappy background stories lack of sexually explicit scenes. Fichera's cinema is a mix between sexploitation and mexploitation films; that is, these movies exhibited non-explicit sexual situations and gratuitous nudity combined with the exploitation of current trends, niche genres, or lurid content, in this case, based on Mexican idiosyncrasy. So, ficheras are full of nudity, prostitutes in cabarets but no orchestras nor beautiful costumes and intricate dances (like in the previous Rumberas films), but just sex, albures, drug cartels, payback, machomen, and interestingly, empowered women that treated men as silly horny sex machines so they might have little pleasure. Now, this genre is a cult genre, but just because it is so bad and politically incorrect, it is ridiculously unique. Parallelly, during this period, some movies explored Mexican drama and took advantage of the openness of the Mexican people. In 1976, directed by Felipe Cazals, Las Poquianchis, El Apando and Canoa were released, three super crude Mexican movies based on real events. The same director released El Año de la Peste in 1979, a sci-fi movie about a pandemic that won the Ariel (the Mexican Oscars) and two years before Juan López Moctezuma released Alucarda, a Mexican movie shot in English that has been considered an anti-government and anticlerical movie similar to Satánico pandemonium (Sexorcists). In 1983, Frida, naturaleza viva was released, which is considered one of the best Mexican films of all time, along with Doña Herlinda y su hijo, released in 1985 directed by  Jaime Humberto Hermosillo and based on a short story by Jorge López Páez,  tells the story of Rodolfo, a homosexual whose mother arranges her son’s partner to move with them while also tries to find a girlfriend for her son. So, despite the fact that generally speaking Mexican cinema experiences an unfortunate decline, the possibility to amalgamate  such a wide range of themes with tons of possibilities in performances and relaxation on what can be shown on the screen left open a world of possibilities that peaked at the end of the 80s
• end of 1980s and beginning of the 1990s to 2000. The New Mexican Cinema: After the 1985’s earthquake, Mexican movies about machomen, escorts, and gratuitous nudity no longer fascinated Mexicans. Also, the economic collapse and inflation did not help this genre. Mexico was not that, but also Mexicans found refuge in Mexican telenovelas, which were more likeable with fantasy stories of love, drama, compassion and success. 

Now, the beginning of this age also marks the end of the ficheras industry and a point of no return for it. This is the time of the movie shown in the post (https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=pfbid0tCR4kupTqAhobxdZ26JLfHfapTd18LzBgscZXxuYe8yT4f3eKXx9dg1ttqKCq6yFl&id=100064818365769&locale=ms_MY): Dos nacos en el planeta de las mujeres.

A sci-fi ficheras movie that was also stupidly politically incorrect. Literally, the movie ends when «the men conquered the planet of women with a mass sexual assault». This movie was released in 1991, one year before Curados de espanto appeared in cinemas, yet another Vampire movie featuring a female archaeologist. This movie recently attracted new attention over a scene in the movie transformed into a meme where the Vampire is immune to the symbol of the cross and says that his ancestors were actually Jewish, and then the Mexicans fighting him show him a swastika and defeat him (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxXCnhrjO58).
Interestingly, in 1991, appeared Danzón. For me, the first Mexican movie that actually turned up the tables. First of all, this movie was directed by María Novaro, a female Mexican film director; secondly, María Novarro also directed and wrote Lola (1989), which tells the story of Lola, a single mother who tries to survive in the wild streets of Mexico City after the disastrous 1985’s earthquake. This same topic of women's struggle is depicted afterwards in La tarea (1990), Como agua para chocolate (1992) or La mujer de Benjamín (1991), but really is in Danzón where the same old topics of rumberas, ficheras, drama, crime, poverty and so on, are eclipsed and reinterpreted as part of the women struggles among a world created for men by men.
In this era we have other blockbusters such as Rojo amanecer (1990), Sólo con tu pareja (1991), Cronos (1992), Miroslava (1993), El callejón de los milagros (1995), Perdita Durango (1997) and Sexo, pudor y lágrimas (1999).
During this decade, nice productions eclipsed the persistent bad movies, which were reluctant to disappear but finally collapsed (somehow, bad movies are always a thing, no matter if it is the Golden Age or the Platinum Age). But the number of movies produced was not phenomenal. For that, we needed to wait for the year 2000.

• The Platinum Age of Mexican Cinema? : It is inevitable not to link the success of the New Mexican Cinema to what it came after the year 2000, despite the fact that in 1999, La ley de Herodes by Luis Estrada was released and actually created a new Mexican genre: satirical black comedy political and social film. This genre was not really explored before. There were movies that represented the injustice and poverty in Mexico. Los Olvidados (1950) or Exterminating Angel (1962) by Luis Buñuel, the famous Pepe el Toro trilogy (1948-1953) directed by Ismael Rodríguez, or even comedy films featuring Cantinflas (such as Si yo fuera diputado...(1952) or Su excelencia (1967)) already had a large social and political criticism component, but La sombra del Caudillo (1962) by Julio Bracho is the proof that Mexico was not ready yet for this kind of cinema. This movie was censored by the Mexican government, and it was released only in 1990. According to Lucero Solórzano (https://www.excelsior.com.mx/opinion/2011/11/21/lucero-solorzano/785709), President Adolfo López Mateos supported the movie and even conceded Julio Bracho to film inside the Congress of Deputies. Julio Bracho would have been happy because, in 1959, he believed that rulers emerging from a faction of the Mexican Revolution had reached sufficient maturity to accept self-criticism of the regime, and his script was accepted by the Secretariat for Home Affairs (Ibarra, Jesús, 2006, Los Bracho: tres generaciones de cine mexicano. México: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México). He addressed famous actors and actresses and hired Gabriel Figueroa, still regarded as one the best cinematographers of all time. Julio Bracho even presented the film at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival and won Best Direction. But then, there was still the problem of releasing the movie in Mexico. That did not happen. The film disappeared, and the Secretariat of National Defense informed the author that the film denigrates Mexico and its institutions and offers a false vision of history and the Mexican Army. 

Twenty years later, La Sombra del Caudillo was finally authorised to be shown in cinemas (some copies were distributed through the black market during the late 70s and the 80s as home videotapes), and suddenly, the copies held by the Secretariat for Home Affairs reappeared. The movie was first officially projected for the public in Mexico on October 25, 1990, in the Gabriel Figueroa theatre. So it is not a coincidence that this same year Jorge Fons Pérez was able to release Rojo Amanecer. Based on testimonies from survivors, it is the first film about the Tlatelolco Massacre in which the army has been held responsible. but we needed to wait yet another 9 years to see a movie that not only reflects the rottenness of Mexican politics but also ridicules political actors, making them look like stupidly greedy and unscrupulous people.
In any case, Amores perros was directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu, the same director of 21 Grams (2003), Babel (2006), Biutiful (2010), Birdman (2014), The Revenant (2015), and Bardo (2022). In 2001, appeared Y tu mamá también, an avarage movie without really a big finale but a powerful climax, however, this movie catapulted the fame of Alfonso Cuarón who had minor successes with Sólo con tu pareja (1991), A little Princess (1995) or Great Espectations (1998). But Y tu mamá también led him to direct Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004), Children of men (2006), Rudo y Cursi (2008), Gravity (2013) and Roma (2018). So, not only was Mexican cinema again recognised as worth watching, but its directors were wonderful ambassadors and also recognised figures.
Obviously, this age cannot be understood without Guillermo del Toro, the director of Cronos and the producer of Doña Herlinda y su Hijo, both already successes, but in 2001 with El Espinazo del Diablo, his fame and reputation were recognised worldwide and then Blade II and Hellboy were directed by him. In 2006, he released El Laberinto del fauno, one of my favourite movies of all time and possibly the movie that transformed Guillermo forever. Afterwards, he was the producer or executive producer of several films and directed some others, such as The Shape of Water (2017) or Pinocchio (2022).
Nevertheless, with all these personal international successes of Mexican producers, directors and performers (e.g. Gael García, Diego Luna, Ana de la Reguera, Martha Higareda, María Rojo, Demián Bichir), what was happening with actual Mexican movies in Mexico?
Well, this is possibly for another post, but just like the Golden Age, the Platinum Age is full of rubbish as well as amazing works. It is an age of experimentation, a diverse range of themes and wonderful soundtracks. In 2001, directed by Marissa Sistach, Perfume de Violetas was released, and I have to say that it is wonderful. I loved it. Among El Laberinto del Fauno, it is one of my favourites…but beware, it is crude and sad. In fact, it is part of a trilogy called The Cruelty Trilogy, and it is followed by Manos Libres (2004) and La niña en la piedra (2006), other than being related by the cruelty topics, the stories are not related whatsoever. Other movies that follow the 2000’s Mexican cinema rebirth trend are Amar te duele (2002), El crimen del padre Amaro (2002), Voces inocentes (2004), El violín (2005), Batalla en el cielo (2005), Un mundo maravilloso (2006), La misma luna (2007), La zona (2007), Corazón del tiempo (2008), Arráncame la vida (2008), Presunto culpable (although, this is a documentary, I added it becaue, in a sense, it also transformed Mexican documentaries; 2008), El Infierno (2010), Después de Lucía (2012), No se aceptan devoluciones (2013), that has three remakes, Demain Tout Commence, Não Se Aceitam Devoluções and a Philippine version called Instant Daddy. Then you have Los insólitos peces gato (2013), Almacenados (2015), La camarista (2018), Ya no estoy aquí (2019), Chicuarotes (2019), et cetera.
It looks good still in 2024.


Let’s hope that if another fall is coming, at least the ficheras genre will not reappear successfully and be consumed. I mean, yes, historically speaking and even as part of our heritage, we need to preserve it as a reminder of what to avoid.

I hope that this pseudo-list of movies and ages in Mexican cinema will spark your animosity and make you go and look around. Hollywood is super overrated.