Alejandro Gonzlez Irritu - Essay Example

Alejandro Gonzáles Iñárritu Order # 160225 4222 Words The cultures of Ancient America had a progress of its own when Spanish "conquistadores" interrupted them. Wars, disease, forced labor, the disappearance of the old social and religious order lead to the deaths of many Indians. For a moment there, it seemed as if those cultures and their beliefs would disappear without trace. Today we know about them through the narrative of conquerors, religious, and the surviving Indians that learned how to read and write after the Conquest. Archeologists and historians uncover still the hidden clues of the past, but it is writers and filmmakers who unveil the ideology of a once proud and strong civilization turned into a weak and timid society which in spite of all the deficiencies held or attributed loves its independence and its dignity more than its own life. Cinematography has played a decisive role in the history of Mexico. During the revolution period, many documentaries were filmed about the battles, and it is said that Pancho Villa made a lot of money for the cause and himself by allowing American cinematographers to film him in action. He even choreographed the battle of Celaya for this purpose.1 Filmmakers like Buñuel, Rodriguez , Galindo and "El Indio" Fernandez depicted the urban dramas of the forties using the natural settings of the "vecindarios" and the "barrios pobres" of cities practically lost within the great metropolis, bringing Mexican movies to its Golden Era. Stories like "Nosotros Los Pobres" and "Ustedes los Ricos" showed the clash of classes that already existed then and have bitterly deepened today. October 1968 would close the golden era of filmmaking. Thousands of students and college professors would be slaughtered between two armed fronts prepared by the hand of the political power; PRI. President Gustavo Diaz Ordaz ordered Luis Echeverria, his secretary of Government, the massacre of students in Tlaltelolco, an historical site known as "The Square of the Three Cultures," holding whats left of the Pre-Hispanic constructions, (1325), the temple of Santiago Apostol,(1535) built after colonization and the modern archeology of the former building for the Foreign Relations Secretary.(Mexicomaxico) Students and professors had been rallying for months protesting against government authoritarianism, torture, killings and the disappearance of those who spoke against the thirty-two year dictatorship of the political party. Echeverria got the next term in office as a reward for stopping the revolt before the Olympic Games. The files were closed, the legacy of the conquistadores; fearful servitude and submission allowed this to happen, and in the present what little has been disclosed about the tragedy is thanks to writers and filmmakers. For over two decades, filmmaking was reduced to obsolete stories about prostitutes, and double language or "albures" due to the censure of the government. Very few independent productions made it to the screen with very limited distribution because of the pressure exercised by the government. In the nineties a new era in filmmaking arouses. Several Producers and Directors start filming movies with forbidden and delicate themes such as Rojo Amanecer from actor director Hector Bonilla which manages to creatively recount the story of Tlaltelolco from the inside of one of the condominiums, not shooting in any exterior locations in Tlaltelolco due to still, government censorship. Amores Perros, from director Alejandro Gonzales Iñárritu is one of the movies born from that re-birth of Mexican filmmaking, becoming the most awarded movie of all times; forty awards from all over the world, except the Ariel, the highest award given in Mexico. "Nadie es profeta en su tierra" Amores Perros: If not now, then when? First film of a trilogy about human essence, Gonzáles Iñárritus idea is to show the contradictory nature of Mexico City. A land where the rich get richer by association and the poor stay poor by procrastination. Nothing is what is seems and this is portrayed through the characters who casually bring God in about every conversation and hang His presence in the walls of their living rooms and around their necks yet, their actions mirror the absence of belief or practice of the basic principles of His teachings. Luis, the rich magazine publisher, who dumps his wife and daughters for Valeria, a famous blonde model from Spain, whose image is displayed in hundreds of billboards around the city, Octavio, the low middle class naco in love with his sister in law; Susana, a down to earth young mother who believes studying will upgrade her status in the economic realm, Daniel, the brutish husband, "El Chivo," a homeless former communist-guerilla ex-con gone assassin, the betraying banker, the corrupt police officer, the crazy gunman, all pushed into the same realization; Loves a bitch. A corrupt society "unaware" that their deepest weaknesses were embedded in their DNA centuries ago, when the vast majority of once the most fearless and prosperous pre-Hispanic civilization is slaughtered and repopulated with the scum from the prisons of Spain brought to fill the colonies of the new world. It is this unawareness that imprisons them in their own and foreign shortcomings and sometimes a mouthful of harsh reality forces them to conquer these drawbacks. Such is the case of "El Chivo," the communist who abandons his wife and daughter for the Cause becoming a guerrilla fighter and when the cause is no longer there he realizes with regret the mistake of his decision, turning then into the only thing he knows how to do; a hired assassin; a bushy eye browed fanatic with blazing eyes that turn soft at the distant sight of his abandoned daughter. When hired by a brother to kill his brother, el Chivo comes to see the importance of family. A wounded dog he finds in the scene of an accident makes him wonder about human sanity, this two incidents lead him to find the courage to speak with his daughter for the first time in years. When civilizations are subdued, individuals have the tendency to adopt the personality of the winners valence; some by plain submission, others by a mechanism of self defense by the obvious lack of skills to outcome the oppressor, both by their defeated known beliefs. During the Spanish Colony, natives or mestizos slowly turned into adopting the religion, customs, traditions, looks and language of their captors. A woman helped both Spaniards and Aztecs through this transition; Malintzin, the daughter of a noble Aztec family who was turned over to passing traders by her own mother upon the birth of her mothers son born to a new marriage after the death of her father. She ends up as a slave in the region of Tabasco, thus learning the Mayan dialect. When Cortez arrives, she is given to him along with 19 other girls. She becomes his slave, interpreter, mistress and the mother of the "first" Mexican of the new world. Spaniards called her Doña María, Aztecs called her traitor. Malinchismo, tendency to favor foreign, is a term born from that episode and most Mexicans suffer from this condition. Gonzáles Iñárritu depicts this through Luis, the rich magazine publisher that leaves his "bitchy" wife and kids for the fragile and spoiled model, one of the few blond, skinny long legged in Mexico City, the prototype that males go crazy about and Mexican women strive for their whole life. They move in together and everything is sweet and peachy until a fatal accident leaves Valeria a mentally and physically crippled woman. His inability or unwillingness on helping her save her Lhasa Apso and her inability to move, together with her slapped vanity changes her behavior abruptly ending their new found bliss pushing Luis to realize he did not have it as bad as he thought thus going back to his wife abandoning his blond trophy. The predominant class difference in Mexico is not really about economics but about power, the same power handed generation to generation by the few viceroys and nobles from Spain who kept natives; Spanish criminals and their offspring in "its place." Only few indigenes made it to the top, Benito Juarez, a poor Indian from Oaxaca was one of them, but his model of perseverance has been difficult, almost impossible to follow by a citizenship who has blocked their abilities and shot down their will to do so. With few opportunities and less clean money to be found, Octavio finds a way out of poverty and the opportunity to "elope" with his sister in law when his dog Cofi is attacked by a pit bull fighter and wins. He signs Cofi up in an underground dog fight "knowing" that he will convince Susana to leave her husband behind and "fly" with him. Daniel suspects there is something going on between them, but corruption wins over honor, and demands a piece of the action, because "el perro tambien es mio" Cofi killing the other dog brings the owner of the dead dog into a revenge gunman turned maniac who pursues Octavio and shoots Cofi. It is this race for life, both his and his dogs that makes Octavio ignore a red light, not so rare in Mexico City where people drive under their own regulations and non existent traffic tickets are paid in the way of "mordidas" at the spot and "en caliente," causing the accident that leaves Valeria wounded. Octavio ends up "como el perro de las dos tortas" without his dog and without the girl. The curse of most mestizos; when you finally "know" that you made it; "Del plato a la boca se cae la sopa" 21 Grams "How much Does Life Weight? The crossover for Alejandro Gonzáles. With this film he becomes widely known in the US. An excellent cast under his direction delivers Alejandro and Guillermo Arriagas concept on, once again God, class differences, the incongruence of thought, and the darkest side of the human soul. Following the multiple story line that Gonzáles Iñárritu handles so well, this movie unravels the twists in life of characters drawn into a path of desperation, hate, guilt, attempted redemption and revenge. Paul, an ailing mathematician in dire need of a heart transplant, who in spite of breathing with the help of an oxygen tank, pulls it painfully to the bathroom to sneak a quick smoke before his wife gets home from work, showing the clear dichotomy of the American society that takes things and even life for granted. Jason, a Latin American ex-con taking his new found faith to extremes, "understanding" the parables of the Bible literally rather than its deep message, getting violent with the kids in his congregation get violent. His wife, who really doesnt understand her husbands faith and doesnt really care to understand, all she wants is the man in the house. Christina, an upper class housewife with a reckless past, struggling with the "life goes on" concept after the tragic loss of her husband and two daughters, who goes back to drugs and alcohol, the easy way out of American society, to help her cope with the process of grief. In the case of Jason, Gonzáles Iñárritu wants to show that no matter how north a Latino emigrates, it still remains a Latino, in many ways a third world citizen. God plays once again an important role in this movie, only this time, the character is actively involved in "his salvation," but his faith is like the one of the apostles, they hear, they repeat but they cant grab the true meaning of the message. No matter how hard the Spaniards enforced their catholic religion, it was learned "under duress," convert or die, leave your pagan ways or perish. Although he is living in the US, the idiosyncrasy of Latinos emerges and in spite of his willingness to change, the change is only fictitious. Jason believes, truly believes that the truck he is driving was given to him by Jesus after he left the life of petty theft he had before encountering Him in his life. He tells so to one of the troubled kids in the congregation, "Jesus gives and Jesus takes." Still the kid does not believe him, the kid is upset, in anger, and Jason almost looses his patience because the kid "cant see" what he is trying to explain: If you are good, God rewards you, if you dont God punishes you. The manipulation of false religion. When Jason turns himself to the police after he accidentally kills Christinas husband and daughters he shows peace in his soul with the knowingness that comes when "you know" you are doing the right thing. His certainty flies out the window when his wife tells him she sold the truck to pay for his defense. The concept of a society that believes that your possessions go together with the blessings vested upon them. He goes down a spiral of desperation until he reaches apathy, not only he stops believing in Jesus, but he is really upset with Him. He cant understand why if he has done everything Jesus told him to, he still punishes him taking away his truck, and he takes his hate towards Jesus by mutilating himself to erase any sign that he once was a believer, the "Ill show you syndrome" that only shows the insecurity in your mind. Gonzáles also explores the world of rejection, how a person who has been rehabilitated is judged by his tattoos, which offend the rich people at the country club much more than his criminal record and so he gets fired. Paul on the other side, the privileged middle class professor who in spite of his condition wont stop smoking, challenging life and felling immortal and Almighty, like many Americans. His wife desperately trying to get pregnant after she had an abortion from the same man, and when Paul finds out it is too much for him to deal with and he draws farther and farther away from her. Perhaps as an excuse to pursue his obsession of going after the widower of the man who saved his life, he feels responsible of her happiness. The widower who submerges herself in drugs, alcohol and goes day by day in apathy, the lowest emotion on the tone scale with encountered feelings when she finds out Paul has her husbands heart, and how she uses Pauls conflicting emotions to push him into killing the very man that destroyed her life because "You owe it to him." Not all is dark in this movie, when Paul sees that Christine is about to beat to death the very man who accidentally changed her life to the worse, unable to stop the beating, shoots himself showing the little respect he has for his life, and yet attracts the attention of Jason and stopping Christine from committing murder, he know he is dying so he doesnt care about advancing the inevitable end. With this, Jason redeems himself, he has touched bottom punishing himself and when he is spared of a certain death twice on the same day he sees the hand of God and then he feels he is worthy of going back to his family. Christine redeems herself as well when she finds she it pregnant and peacefully recover her life again. This is an excellent production with deep knowledge of human behavior by Gonzáles Iñárritu. "It is said we all loose twenty grams at the exact moment of our death, every one." BABEL "Pain is universal…but so is hope" A masterpiece. The drama that interlocks these four families is superbly portrayed without subtleness, straight and direct to the viewer. For many, not an easy movie to digest, the multiple frames and its intricate message either slaps you in the face or goes over. A story where the characters are forced to face their obsessions and flaws in the eye. Richard and Susan, a married couple from America, travels to Morocco to try and work out their differences but they only grow farther because of a glass with ice, and the resentment in her eyes and the helplessness in his looks becomes evident. The Moroccan herder and Amelia, the Mexican nanny, both, who in spite of the different raising share not only the wide eyed innocent nature of their culture but the failure to envision the "whats and ifs" of reality, Yussef and Ahmed, the brothers who are in constant competition for the love and approval of their father, The brutality of police in Morrocco and the US/Mexican border, Santiago, a Mexican immigrant whos thinks he can outsmart an already predisposed border officer and his way out the situation, Chieko, the deaf-mute Japanese teenager who deals with rejection and will go to any extent to get rid of her "bad mood," Her *Japanese father*, dealing with his own depression over the loss of his wife, and the recriminations of his daughter in a culture that doesnt allow him to speak his heart or get closer to his daughter. Morocco, is one of the largest producers and exporters of cannabis in the world, its cultivation and sale provides for much of the population in the northern part of the country. Thats were Susan is taken when she is shot. The beauty of Susans character is the fact that because she is obsessed with germs and hygiene, she ends up where there is lots of them, and none. Gonzales provides us in this way the ironies of life. She is treated by a vet, and if that isnt shocking enough for her, she has to "share" a smoke with a woman who is not the representation of cleanness. Nevertheless and in spite of the different approach in medicine, she is saved. The blessing of being shot is the realization that her husband cares, after all. In a lower scale, Yussefs shooting is the powder keg of the situation. The “show off” kid, the peeping tom, the "I know everything" attitude in a volatile country where already exists political and historical circumstances that may lead to an international conflict of mega proportions should the tourist had died and shouldnt he had come forward saying he was "accidentally" responsible. Of course this doesnt happen until he sees the pain he has caused his father and the bloody body of his older brother. Gonzáles Iñárritu shows us life in a Muslim country, where laundry is done in the rocks, and giving a gun to a kid is as normal as handling him a ball in another, where chores go beyond just mowing the lawn, because there is no lawn but jackals in the "back porch." The powder keg effect reaches the Mexican nanny all the way on the other side of the world. Because of the incident, and her unconditional love and sense of duty as a mother, she is "forced" by her ignorance to make the bad decision of taking the kids under her care across the border, the eternal blindness of Mexicans low class insensateness, once again the presence of the "Gallego" syndrome, connected with the DNA "curse." Santiago is the perfect example of the immigrant living the "American Dream" still dressed with the culture of its place of origin, the arrogance of thinking he can drive drunk and worst he can outrun the border patrol. The border officers with their predisposition to anything that looks "Mexican" show the fear under which the American society lives under, and the eternal assumption that if you come from Mexico you must be crossing drugs. Finally but not less important, the twist of the final piece of the puzzle, the "innocent" gift given to a Moroccan hunting guide by the Japanese widow, in token for his appreciation for a service well rendered, this is the key that opens the door to an extraordinary story that has its roots of misunderstanding in Biblical times, where tongues were confused because of arrogance and pride of the human race. CONCLUSION Gonzáles Iñárritu shows a deep knowledge of emotional genetics in human nature; its thinking, emotions and reactions. He knows human life is accident-prone and he uses this to reveal how "life comes at you fast" and how it is free will and not divine intervention to blame for complicating matters even more, nevertheless, and regardless of social levels, there is always God to blame for a change of wind or the downhill of known routine. His knowledge and handling of the personality of all the different characters, the shortcomings and profound flaws of the different cultures he touches in all three movies brings us more than a movie, brings us a valuable document with a deep understanding of human problematic globally. An interesting statement Gonzáles shows in Amores Perros is how society cares for their dogs more than they care for their fellow humans. When the film hit theatres, Gonzáles Iñárritu went through great explanation and assurance to the animal rights organizations around the world to assure them no animals were harmed during the making of the movie, yet no explanation was required about the violence against human beings. 21 Grams, an ambitious project that touches subjects not addressed very often in movies: organ donation and rejection, hit and run, rage against God, self mutilation, deep despair, revenge, and the clash of societies and the reality of misconceptions about how a person with tattoos is more dangerous than his criminal history. Babel is the movie that sent him to the top of the list, a director with no nationality but rather a unique vision and gifted direction. All three movies, characters and stories combined, provide a powerful looking glass into human culture and subculture, showing us how linked we really are; Third world citizens; Mexican low class and Moroccan hillbillies, in Babel, Jason, the Hispanic living in the US in 21 Grams, and low-class Mexicans in Amores Perros, regardless of distance, culture and language think, and react alike. All three movies show realism with huge touches of surrealism. Alejandro Gonzáles Iñárritu "El Negro" From Mexico to the World. It is globally known in showbiz that if you want to boost your career internationally as a singer, filmmaker or actor, the place to start is Mexico. But this seldom applies the other way around. The ambitioned cross-over is gained by but a few and it takes years, and years of intents which most of the time show useless. However this is not the case for Mexican producer and director Alejandro Gonzales Iñárritu, who from his first movie skyrocketed to the front page of filmmaking history. Master of the Nonlinear time sequence movies. Gonzales was born with a "Torta bajo el brazo." Each one of his trilogies not only has been nominated for the Academy Awards, but most of the actors in these movies have been nominated as well under his extraordinary direction. Born from Spanish descendents in Mexico City on August 15, 1963, he starts in show business in 1984 as a DJ at the radio station WFM. But his vision and heart were set in filmmaking and so he studies cinematography and theater while working. Not many people know that he was also a composer and from 1988 to 1999, he composed the music for six Mexican features. In the 90s, Gonzáles became one of the youngest producers for the most important network in the country, Televisa. But with filmmaking in focus he lives the consortium to start his own production company; Zeta Films. With the old contacts made in Televisa Alejandro starts writing and shooting commercials for television, mostly as route to practice for the big screen, some of them can be seen in Amores Perros. He continues studying filmmaking in Maine and Los Angeles under Polish director Ludwik Margules, perhaps from whom he gets his unique style, so different from Western directors. He chooses his first feature to be for Televisa, "Detras del Dinero" produced in 1995, and starring Miguel Bose, famous Spanish singer. Looking for good stories, he meets screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga in 1996. Together they plan to produce eleven shorts to show the contradictory nature of Mexico City. Three years and thirty- six drafts later, they settle for expanding three of the stories. Amores Perros is born becoming a major hit upon release at the Cannes Festival 2000." In 2002 Gonzales Iñárritu along with several other directors from different nationalities such as Wim Wenders, Ken Loachi, Mira Nair, Amos Gitai and Sean Penn embark in the making of "110901- September 11," a film about the influence of the terrorist attacks around the world. 21 Grams is his first English speaking movie starring Sean Penn, Benicio del Toro and Naomi Watts, all nominated for their extraordinary performances. And along came Babel, a film that because of it complexity puts him on top of the film industry, with an international vision. He is the first Mexican director to achieve such a fast and solid success. "When I met Alejandro Gonzáles Iñárritu I felt his great humanity. He is an obsessive and perfectionist dude. His greatest virtue rests in knowing how to listen and being very respectful, he respected my work and the points of view I sustained." (Guillermo Arriaga, screenwriter of Amores Perros, 21 Grams, Babel and The three burials of Melquiades in an interview for Telemundo Magazine) Sources: http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cine_mexicano http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alejandro_Gonz%C3%A1lez_I%C3%B1%C3%A1rritu http://www.mexicomaxico.org/Tenoch/Tenoch3.htm Blockbuster DVD Amores Perros Blockbuster DVD 21 grams Blockbuster DVD Babel Read More