Jan
28
Mecanica Nacional
Posted by: Brian | January 28, 2009 | Comments Off on Mecanica Nacional
I think this film says a lot about the culture of Mexico. First, there is the obvious “machismo” throughout the whole film. Men treat women as if they were very inferior. Women are slapped and pushed by men, and nobody thinks this is a big deal. So the society accepts this as a normal thing. There is no single person that stands up to the behavior of the “machos”. The men also have the idea that they need to be that way because they think they will be more respected. Women are depicted as weak as well as inferior. The voluptuous woman for example was touched everywhere when she fell down and then didn’t say a thing to them. It seems like they are oppressed. One of the wives at a point says that she sacrificed so much for the family, like staying up all night to take care of the kids, and never received the respect. She says things that she does that the men in the marriage never did. However, at the same time they were doing wrong by going off with two other guys that were not their husbands. So the movie is telling us that women deserve it that way.
There is also a lot of violence in the movie. Everyone wants to fight all the time; they only stop when someone pulls out a gun. The gun represents a higher status because nobody could do anything but talk them out of the situation. I found it interesting that feelings sometimes did not seem to be real. For example, when the grandmother was dead and the race was about to end, everyone leaves as if no one really cares about the poor dead. The doctors also said they wanted to leave fast so that they didn’t have to take care of the old woman. However, everyone shows sympathy to the son of the old woman and even have a minute of silence for him. It was very interesting to see that everyone was so united even though many did not know each other. There was this sense of community between everyone.
One last thing which was very interesting was when the reporters came and filmed the dead with everyone around. They were telling people to pose as if it was art. They were interested in getting people’s faces and actions not in a real mode. This bothered me because they were taking advantage of the death of the old lady for their own.
