When we take a look at national cinema, there is no doubt that the personality of Mexican cinema is incomparable in Latin America.
It is true that the industry has had controversial moments in history, ups and downs with cheap comedies, but what is produced cinematically in the country have been cult films and film productions that have acquired some kind of popular cult, either because of its format, its production, its plot or its historical significance.
Eg Golden era, specifically, shows us a small threshold towards the Mexico of the years of Second World War and his remarkable influence on the hollywood cinema, which at that time was in the splendor of the "cult of the actor", and not precisely the genre or the film industry.
The Caifanes. Source: Monterey Rock
It was, in fact, the importance of "creating stars to attract audiences to theaters" that spawned the popularization of entertainment media in Mexico, giving rise to artists like Agustin Lara, Jorge Negrete, María Felix, Dolores del Río and Pedro Infante, who were immortalized thanks to their wonderful personalities that stood out above their own directors.
It is partly the reason why we know more actresses and actors than directors or producers of national cinema.
At the end of everything, Mexico It has an extensive list of "golden cinema" films considered as its greatest cultural treasures, most of which we have even seen by accident on television or we know them by inheritance from our parents and grandparents.
However, in order to no longer have to find them "almost by accident", here we present our definitive list of five cult Mexican films; some highly surreal, others: eclectic, chaotic, fantastic and horror, but all are worth your time.
"The Caifanes" (1960) – Juan Ibanez
Magical, surreal, bohemian, mischievous and emotional, this is the Mexican film “Los Caifanes”, a film directed by Juan Ibáñez released in 1967. It is the film that represented a notable change in the way of making cinema in our country.
Starring Sergio Jimenez ("The cat"), Oscar Chavez (“The Styles”), Eduardo Lopez Rojas (“El Masacote”) and Ernesto Gomez Cruzz (“El Azteca”), all of them unknown theater actors in professional circles, the film broke with the conventional, both in the theme, as in the script, in photography and in a very important point: to give actors a chance unknown to be the protagonists.
One of the most outstanding points of this film is its script, since it was written by the very same Carlos Fuentes.
Touching social, political and even religious issues in the middle of something close to a "roadtrip" within the CMexico City, "The Caifanes"It is a film that will remain relevant, as it portrays the chilango impeccably.
"The Shadow of the Caudillo" (1960) – Julio Bracho
"The Shadow of the Caudillo"is the best literary work produced by the Revolution; there is no anecdote here, there is history that is presented in the urban and political panorama with its murky waters, so murky that they resemble mud.
La Mexican Revolution is one of the most important themes in Mexican literature, and it seems that Bracho tried to make national life after the war the main theme in the cinema. Revolution, but he did not count on the fact that the people in power might not agree with him.
Highly critical of the government, as it demonstrated (under different names) how the presidential succession was after the revolution, it is one of the most important films in national cinema, both for its production method and for what the Mexican Revolution.
The tape was kept hidden and became an open secret for 30 years.
The idea came to Bracho in the 1960s and he managed to film it in XNUMX, but because "it generated a false vision of Mexico and its institutions"; the film was not released until 1990.
"Gangsters against Charros" (1948) – Juan Orol
"gangsters against charros" narrates the arrival of Carmenta to a town dominated by the Charro de arrabal Pancho Dominguez, with whom he will enter into a dispute (along with their respective sides) for the love of Rosa, the charro's wife.
The film, today considered one of the jewels of Mexican cinema of the golden age, although it focuses on a plot of action and suspense, can be linked without much problem with the surrealist cinema characteristic of Luis Bunuel.
The best directors of Mexican cinema are always acclaimed, but the worst have also managed to go down in history for their strange contributions to cinema, one of them is John Orol. Considered by many to be the "Ed Wood Mexican", the director enjoyed popularity and commercial success, but it was the poverty of his plots and the bad performances that gave his films a special flavor.
In the performance, a love triangle unfolds between a charro, a gangster and a woman; Although the action can sometimes be laughable, it has also made it one of the best Mexican films.
"The Exterminating Angel" (1962) – Luis Buñuel
In this movie, a group of high-society friends are invited to a mansion for dinner and find themselves inexplicably unable to leave.
In the daring masterpiece of Luis Bunuel, the exterminating angel, made just a year after the director's international sensation, Viridiana, this film, full of disturbing and comical absurdities, continues Buñuel's evil overthrowing of the rituals and dependencies of the frivolous upper classes.
Buñuel's work highlights the way in which the Spanish director progressively handles mutation through dialogues and tragicomic events, turning out to be truly wonderful.
Along with the way the camera distributes the scenes in 360 degrees within those four walls impossible to leave, this highly surreal film is constantly divided between the anguish in the face of the inexplicable and the inconsistency with which individuals behave.
Do not miss it!
"Fando and Lis" (1968) – Alejandro Jodorowsky
"The Mole" became a classic acclaimed by international critics and even by John Lennon, but before her was "Fando and Lis".
With the same symbolic load, but narrating a strange odyssey worthy of the theater of the absurd, this film led Jodorowski to be considered one of the promising artists of the XNUMXth century, but it also infuriated a large part of the film industry in Mexico who sought to veto the film and even run the director of the country.
Al final de todo, is a surrealist work done in black and white based on the homonymous play by Ferdinand Barrabal that is conducted between the classic canons of the so-called "theatre of the absurd".
Fando and Lis, warns the director himself, is a crude and poetic metaphor of cruelty, loneliness and human isolation.