Jan
27
Mecanica Nacional
Posted by: Brian | January 27, 2009 | Comments Off on Mecanica Nacional
I don’t really know what to say about this film. It has 88 votes on IMBD (one is mine) and I can understand why. This is not really a good film. A good film has a narrative and characters the audience cares about. It follows a structure and makes a point about a theme. Its sorta like a thesis. Los olvidados presented the film of lack and education and stated that we need it to continue the progress of urbanization. Aguila o sol presented the theme of the poor versus the rich and by satirizing it, made us realize the difference in status and how Mexicans perceive each other, as the poor being uneducated and the rich being snobs, and that this has to change for Mexico to prosper. Mecanica Nacional doesn’t really make a statement about the themes it presents. It presents a lot of themes, yes, but it doesn’t really make a point about any of them. It shows people mourning about death, meaning that people come together when death is present, but then people immediately leave to see the end of the car race. This indifference suggests that Mexican people, even if they care about death, focus more on materialistic stuff. But that theme never shows up again the film. Then theres also the chauvinistic theme that is carried out by most members of the community (if I can call it that), but the director never says if its bad or good because the women still stick to their men and beg forgiveness. Maybe the director is trying to establish that chauvinism is necessary and a part of Mexican lives, but doesnt go for and against it and that’s what probably bothers me the most about this movie. It presents an event but makes no effort to state if its good or bad or what can be changed. Maybe this is what the film was trying to do, but that is what limits the film in narrative terms. I also never really got into the film. In Los Olvidados I cared what would happen to the characters. In Aguila O sol I would root for Cantinflas. Here I didnt. The main character was chauvinistic and vulgar, the women were portrayed as victims of their own destiny and promiscuous or naive, and the rest were hippies that only said “peace and love”. The film limits itself because of exactly what it is trying to do. Another thing I didnt like was the voices. It sounded like the film was dubbed or something, but the voices just sounded fake. I don’t know why that was, maybe poor acting, but it distracted me more than once.
What the film did well was portray the baby boom era in contrast to the more conservative type. It also shows the US impact in Mexico, people saying: “esa es la moda en los Estados Unidos” or the prostitute saying all thos spanglish terms. Yet again, it never states if this is bad or good. It simply shows it.
