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Honestly i didn’t anticipate getting much cinematic terminologies and concepts from 404, but i feel that it brings me staffs way more valuable than those, and for sure this post is gonna be the most tough one to draw.Due to geographic reasons, there ar…

I’m really glad I had the experience of seeing the movies in this course, because the only Mexican movies that I had seen before the course started were The Three Amigos and Nacho Libre. Other than those, the only movies from Spanish speaking countri…

I really enjoyed the first half of the term because I found the films more interesting. However, I will be honest, this class made me watch films I would never consider watching, such as The Wild Bunch. Then again, after I read the articles and had a h…

Mecanica Nacional: I think this movie was all about excessiveness. Excessive consumption, sex and alcohol. What this mirrors though, and is in a sense another way of portraying, is the excessive representations of mexican identity. This excessiveness w…

Not having taken a film course before, I didn’t know what to expect. I don’t know much about film theory nor do I have a technical background. That being said, I usually always watch films for entertainment. I think watching them in a classroom con…

I’m just going to go through the movies we watched and what I thought was most notable of each of them.Aguila o Sol: What I noticed most about this film was Mexico’s own satire of their people, seen most clearly in the act of Cantiflas and his friend. …

I have never been in a film class before, except for a Literature and Film class in High School in which we talked about how books were adapted into films, but I didn’t get much out of that class.  I am totally the person who will watch a film quite passively, as entertainment. I will […]

I have never been in a film class before, except for a Literature and Film class in High School in which we talked about how books were adapted into films, but I didn’t get much out of that class.  I am totally the person who will watch a film quite passively, as entertainment. I will […]

I had never taken a film class before, and I think I learned a lot in this one. I was expecting the class to be completely in Spanish and to be about all of Latin America, not just Mexico. However, I still enjoyed the class, most movies, and the disc…

Well,
I wasn’t really involved in the first half of the course. Sorry Jon.
I thought the whole class was in Spanish. I don’t speak spanish.
I was happy to find out discussions were in english though and I’m sorry I wasn’t there from the start.
As a film major, I’m constantly watching and appreciating films from a technical, theory based and content driven perspective.
I think it’s safe to assume that many moviegoers watch films to be entertained as opposed to challenged.
And that’s sad, because layers of meaning can be found within even the most banal films.
Three Amigos for example.
I was completely taken off guard with this film and the layers of "meta" acting and realism shown.
Also the use of comedy as a method of presenting this film within a film seemed to be the optimal way to deal with that idea, unless you treated it as a psychological, horror film with no escape. This isn’t a fully fleshed out idea, but regardless, the film made me think.
And so, I was very happy to take this course and gain a feel for how Mexico is represented in film.
I’m glad this course exists for students who are not in the film program so as to promote more interesting thinking on the medium.
I also feel like now I have much less of a grasp on my vision of Mexico then when I came into this course because the country is so varied and cannot be lumped together into one idea of representation.
I will not stop using the term "stereotype" but I’ll think more about what it means in the future.
Anyway, really enjoyed the class and the discussions.

Taking a look back at the class, I can enjoyed it very much. There were some movies that I would rather not have seen, but in general, it really gave me a pretty big scope on mexican cinema, and more importantly, it got me triggered on learning more ab…

Honestly i didn’t anticipate getting much cinematic terminologies and concepts from 404, but i feel that it brings me staffs way more valuable than those, and for sure this post is gonna be the most tough one to draw.Due to geographic reasons, there ar…

I wasn’t sure what to expect coming into Span 404. I have always had an interest in watching movies and figured it would be kind of interesting to be able to learn how to analyze film. At first I found it a little intimidating to express my own thoug…

Even though we were supposed not to learn anything about Mexico I did. I learn about Mexican history, especially about Porfirio Diaz dictatorship and the mexican revolution. I think that was useful for the understanding of the movie as a lot of the mai…

I’ve been sick these days, and since i have the movie in my computer, i watched it again. I just want to say that when i first watched it, i felt it was excellent, but after going through all the movies, i cann’t say that it’s outstanding, but it’s sti…

In response to Alyssa: I also saw the bias the cinematography emphasized, as it showed Mexico as dirty and dingy, while California was saturated in color and seemed bright, crisp and romanticized. I also commented in my blog about the daughter’s friend…

A very powerful film and entirely different from last week’s Three Amigos to say the least.
It truly does expose so much of the futility inherent in the "War on Drugs".
As long as there is demand, there will be supply, and as long as there is no control over drug through legalization then there will be extreme measure taken resulting in the death of loved ones. The border crossing was almost humorous in how ineffective it was at stopping the flow of drugs, and for good reason with massive amounts of traffic passing through every day. At points the film verged on documentary, and achieved a further sense of realism through the handheld camerawork. Furthermore, the amount of unending levels of corruption within police and military in Mexico was unbelievable yet scary in its depiction. It’s hard to believe that this film was even made considering how slanderous it is regarding the american political system and the groups of leaders who talk talk talk but are ineffectual at doing anything.
Soderbergh bathes the two stories in different colour palettes evoking a simplicity towards the issue but at the same time quite the opposite. The futility of those who are trying to serve justice and the pain they endure (Don Cheadle’s character for instance) reminded me of the maddening plight for justice in Touch of Evil.
It would be interesting to hear a Mexican reading of this film as it seems to place Mexico in a less concerned state regarding drug trafficking, unaffected by it and also given up to the reality that is the trade. 

I thought this was a really good film. It was completely biased towards the Americans, but it was still a good film nevertheless. The reason I’m saying it was biased towards the Americans is because the Mexican government and military seem to be corrup…

Hey everyone,I just found this interesting article and photoset on the Mexican drug war which also have some strong similarities with the movie.Enjoyhttp://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/03/mexicos_drug_war.htmlhttp://matadorpulse.com/whats-going-on-in…

This movie was a great one to watch. As well as other movies we have watched in class, it showed the take on an issue by the Mexican and American side. It was great that real life organizations were used to describe problems in society in relation to…

What I noticed most about this film, and perhaps one of the few things which I didn’t like about it, was the cinematography in the sense of its colour. I know there must be a division of which kind of formula was used in each setting etc, but it was st…

I have seen Traffic previously, but for some reason I don’t remember having such a difficult time watching it, as I had this time. The subject matter is also very relevant especially today with the drug wars taking place right over the border. I thin…

One aspect of this movie that I found interesting occurred in the first couple of scenes. There is a definite contrast in the level of organization between the Americans and Mexicans. In a way, it seemed ironic. The Mexican cops knew where the drugs…

May I say, first of all, that I find it interesting watching this movie on the same day that I was reading on BBC about the U.S. intensifying border control to fight drugs.
I was really bothered by the coloring of Mexico (in a sickly yellow) and the northern cities (in blue).  It contributed to the […]

This is my second watching Traffic and like the first time I really enjoyed it. What I find to be really interesting is the many different stories going on at the same time; you have all different sides of the drug trafficking problem being brought to …

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