Violence, Conflict and Discourse in Mexican Cinema (2002-2015)

The last two decades have seen dramatic changes to Mexico's socio-political landscape. A former president fleeing into exile, political assassinations, a rebellion in Chiapas, and the eruption of the so-called war on drugs provide key examples of critical events shaping the nation. This book examines Mexican cinema's representations of, and responses to, these socio-political moments. Beginning with the definitive year 1994, which saw the Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional (EZLN) declare war on the Mexican government, the early chapters in this book discuss the outcome of these episodes in subsequent years and how they find screen representation. The study then moves on to provide close readings of key filmic texts as reflections of the so-called narco-war and its effects on Mexican society. Focusing on both fiction and documentary filmmaking, this book explores notions of violence, victimhood, and the complex processing of grief in the context of enforced disappearances and the narco-conflict. In addition to examining films made in Mexico, this investigation incorporates the work of three of the nation's most celebrated transnational directors: Guillermo del Toro, Alejandro González Iñárritu and Alfonso Cuarón. By examining their work on European soil as a comparative exercise, the analyses offer an understanding of the imprints left by warfare and trauma upon the collective and individual psyche, seen from a universal viewpoint. Using rigorous theoretical frameworks and succinct filmic analyses, this book will be essential reading for those interested in Mexican and Latin American film, as well as those working in the fields of Cultural, Screen, and Trauma Studies.

Analyses both commercially successful and non-commercially successful Mexican films across a thirteen-year span that saw a dramatic increase in the critical and popular attention given to Mexican cinema Examines the myriad ways in which Mexican films discursively construct violence and conflict in Mexico, while also exploring how the work of transnational Mexican filmmakers has reckoned with violence abroad Considers the work of some of Mexico's best-known filmmakers, including Guillermo del Toro, Alejandro González Iñárritu and Alfonso Cuarón, as well as that of lesser-known artists, such as Luis Estrada, Amat Escalante, and Tatiana Huezo

Autorentext

Miriam Haddu is Senior Lecturer in the School of Humanities, Royal Holloway, University of London, United Kingdom. She specialises in Mexican film, photography, and documentary filmmaking. She has curated international exhibitions on Mexican photography and has published extensively in the field. She is the author of Contemporary Mexican Cinema (1989-1999): History, Space and Identity, and her co-edited books include Visual Synergies in Fiction and Documentary Film from Latin America and Legacies of the Past: Memory and Trauma in Mexican Visual and Audio-Visual Culture.

Inhalt

Chapter 1: Introduction.- Chapter 2: Indigeneity, Insurgency and Resistance: El violín (2006) and Corazón del tiempo (2009).- Chapter 3: Political Violence: The Case of Conejo en la luna (Rabbit on the Moon) (2004) and Colosio: El asesinato (Colosio: The Assassination) (2012).- Chapter 4: Drug Violence and Narco Wars Part I: Luis Estrada's El infierno (Hell) (2010).- Chapter 5: Drug Violence and Narco Wars Part II: Amat Escalante's Heli (2013).- Chapter 6: Spectral Visions: Mexican Directors in Europe (Guillermo del Toro, Alejandro González Iñárritu and Alfonso Cuarón).- Chapter 7: Textual Hybridities in Aro Tolbukhin: En la mente del asesino (2002).- Chapter 8: Loss and Mourning in Documentary: Tatiana Huezo's Ausencias (2015).- Chapter 9: Conclusion.