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 I had never seen this film before but had heard a lot about it.
The opening crane shot sequence was unbearably tense and beautifully shot.
The unsuspecting car planted with bomb slowly weaving around crowds of people had me holding my breath.
Welles seemed to purposely bait the audience with different bomb exploding possibilities in that scene too.
For example: The car disappearing behind a building, the policeman directing traffic, the happy couples, the cart full of trinkets, the other cars.
He plays a multitude of mind games on the viewer…
The camera pulls away from the bomb car leading the audience to think the explosion will come and then the car pulls uncomfortably close again. The main characters Vargas and Susie are essentially side by side with the car for a few minutes and the music is at all times very joyous and vibrant. The characters and plot were easy to follow with amazingly memorable characters ie: Hank Quinlan! Yikes. Is it just me or does the T.V show House owe a lot to this character? Welles is an absolutely exceptional actor and shows his skill the representation of Quinlan.
The perfect example of film noir.
Almost a ridiculously dated film now though. The constant mention of reefer and reefer stubs was somewhat comical. Unintentional of course but speaks of a time when the fear of marijuana was at its height.
Also the border! How things have changed since this film was made is unbelievable!
It’s even referenced in the film when (Vargas?) mentions the endless miles of uncontrolled border without a single machine gun in place. 
Regardless, loved the film, loved the single take tracking shots (Ie: in the apartment where the dynamite was planted), beautiful lighting and shadows, venetian blinds. Unreal.

I think that commenting on the cinematography and how it affected my perception of the film would be far above my head. I think that my thematic response to the film, though, was aided by the angles and movements of the camera.But, he final scene in wh…

This was an interesting film to watch. It did bother me that Charles Heston was playing a Mexican, I must say.  However, the cinematography was quite good.  I especially enjoyed the use of lighting and when (as a result of such lighting) we see great shadows running past on the wall.
It was interesting, because […]

I’m finding it difficult to talk/think about this movie. I thought that it was really boring and hard to watch and therefore hard to follow at times. I don’t know why I didn’t like it. If somebody had summarized the plot for me, and I hadn’t se…

I found the narrative very interesting. I liked how the director divided our attention between what was going on with uncle Joe Grandi and with Quinlan to mislead us and make us wonder about the fate of Susan. I thought that the bad cop versus the good…

I’m not sure how to feel about this film. It had the usual racist and sexist components of Hollywood films of the time, which are still hard for me to get around sometimes, depending on the film. The fact that Charlton Heston played the main lead who w…

I found this movie pretty enjoyable and action packed. It felt pretty “advanced” for its time in terms of plots and techniques, it definitely wasn’t as cheesy as other movies of that time. The beginning of the movie I found was extremely suspenseful…

When I started watching the film I thought it was a documentary. As the film progressed I realized it was actually a number of short stories or episodes of some sort. When I was watching it seemed like I was listening to a lecture or presentation on …

I actually felt that the scene of the women combing their hair wasn’t eroticized. I felt that the camera wanted to depict a closeness to nature and basic man. If you see Concepcion and her betrothed, he is looking at her face, not her breasts or what w…

From what I understood from the presenter the movie was sponsored and administered by Americans therefore I doubt that tit was aimed to soviet audiences or that it intended to provoke communist pride. In fact, I think that the movie ended up in a museu…

I found the Que Viva Mexico to be an interesting film even though it seemed a little disorganized in terms of the storyline. It appeared to be made as a documentary in the first half which showed the traditions and lifestyles in Mexico and the other ha…

Well, before putting my fingers onto the keyboard, i pondered this movie for quite a while. I missed the prologue, but still, i like it, for its distinct style and way of portraying, and my biggest impression is that it’s really a typical Soviet one.1….

Viva Mexico seemed to be drawn to the cultural aspects of Mexico that would be of interest to any foreigner. There were a lot of elements in the film that indicated the time it was filmed. The film took the approach of a documentary in the initial scen…

I really enjoyed this movie. Specifically though, I was really intrigued by the deep connections the filmmakers make between the Mexico they film and nature and the past. The first part, in which they observe the ruins, and the people are integrated in…

This movie was weird and random and I didn’t understand it. I didn’t understand the general statement or the purpose of it. I thought it was really artistic…the photography was amazing at first…in the beginning of the movie when they compared p…

I just read on IMDB that this is a masterpiece, and that the author of the review puts this film right up there next to Citizen Kane and Casablanca. I think this is an exxageration in every sense of the word. I didn’t think this film was good or bad, i…

Me costó bastante entender la película hasta el final, cuando hablaron de soldaderas.   La falta de una narrativa y tener que leer subtítulos lo hizo bastante difícil. No entendí al principio por qué hablaron de aquella muchacha que se casaba, y porque, por lo menos al parecer fue la misma muchacha, en el principio andaba […]

There is something very enigmatic about Eisenstein’s approach to “Montage”.
Especially moving were the huge amount of close-up shots of the face, made even more dynamic by the casting of real mexican people as opposed to actors. The faces were creased and weathered, and seemed to tell a million stories on their own. There were also, as in most Eisenstein films, a couple close ups of men with their eyes rolled all the way back in their head leaving only the whites of their eyes. This image seems to evoke extreme suffering, and perhaps looking towards god. I’m interested to hear what others thought.
And the pilgrimage! Crazy! Was that staged? The shot of the three men with the cacti on their back standing on a rock and turning towards the camera was wild!
Anyway.
I loved the beginning of the film (Not the part with the old guy talking but once the actual film started) that took the human form, and specifically the mexican people, and directly paired it with the land, the history and the monuments. It had a huge impact on me and I felt that the shots were at the same time respectful to the culture, but also removed and uninformed. There was a sense of awe established by the shot construction about these stone figures and symbols, a very light physical comparison of the facial features on both the mexican people and the stone people, but a lack of any explanation with regards to significance that these symbols have. I wonder if this will be a reoccurring theme in the films we watch next? I imagine there will be either a complete lack of explanation, a mistake with regards to certain represented symbols, OR a total over emphasized explanation of a specific mexican symbology that would never be expressed if the film was made by a mexican filmmaker. That’s a theory anyway…
Regardless, the soviet style and mentality definitely showed itself in the film and I enjoyed the idea mentioned in class about the Mexican revolution providing an ideal narrative and story for how it relates to Stalin’s communist USSR.
I also enjoyed the film…
Nice.

Esta película es muy diferente que las otras que hemos visto en la clase. Mi primera impresión de la película es que es muy pictórica. Las primeras escenas consisten de imágenes quietas que son casi como fotografías y no son solamente fotos pero…

¡Que viva México! provides an unexpected point of view of Mexico from Russia. I think the film sincerely attempts to provide a picture of a “true” Mexico. What I found interesting is what they show and what they don’t show. The movie starts off by…

Los rituales al rededor de la muerte incluyendo el funeral del fallecido fueron las escenas que envolvieron todos los demas temas de la pelicula y por esto creo el director y los productores representan mexico como una sociedad donde la muerte es parte…

I feel like there’s a lot that could be said about this movie, but so much is left for interpretation, it’s hard to know where to begin.I don’t know if I completely liked or agreed with the general statement of this movie, but there are some elements t…

This film seems to be interested in the iconic figures such as the Virgen de Guadalupe and the flag, which are representative of Mexico. In response to Marianne, after Marcos death, instead of the flag being raised, we see the flag coming down. As I me…

Yo miraba esta película antes del principio del esto semestre. Para serte franca, mi impresión general para esto film es que, yo fui sumamente sacudida por los primeros minutos del cine, y por lo tanto es la primera película que me da un sentimiento…

The film La Batalla en el Cielo shows an interest in the mundane activities of daily life as each shot is filmed for a prolonged period of time in order to create the allusion that the activities are unfolding and taking place right before the audience…

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