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Article Excerpt
Many early Mexican films show national landscapes outside of Mexico City, a territory known as provincia. Given this early interest in provincia, a potentially interesting register of developments appears in contemporary cinema which incorporates that same space. Although the more politically correct term for provincia used in government-sponsored public announcements is "the interior of the Republic," the more concise term "provincia" will suffice here. The contemporary cinematic approach to provincia depends in part on whether the work in question takes place in Mexico City or in provincia itself. As the catchall, Mexico City-centered definition of provincia implies, films set in Mexico City offer a vague staging of Mexican space outside the capital. Filmic provincia often emerges in sharper definition when presented in the context of fictional locals. Whether set inside or outside Mexico City, however, recent films tend to imagine provincia as a permissive space that facilitates social freedom. To illustrate this point, the present essay will review various treatments of provincia in recent Mexican cinema and then more closely examine three exceptions to the presentation of provincia as a laboratory for social liberation. These three exceptions are La ley de Herodes (1999), Y tu mama tambien (2000), and El Tigre de Santa Julia (2002), which in some measure exploit the theme of social liberation prominent in recent cinema set in provincia, only to advance political criticism that negates the purity of this freedom. The trio reflects the top end of the fifteen years considered in this essay and thus indicates that the supposed improvements in sensitivity to the "interior of the Republic" do not correspond to recent Mexican governmental attitudes. Related to this political posture, the conclusion of the present essay will point out inconsistencies in the films' criticism of the centrist government based in Mexico City.
Depictions of Mexican provincia in films set within Mexico City often imagine the territory outside of the capital as idyllic, so much so that most Mexico City characters never manage to set foot in this promised land. Besides the contaminated experience and ethic that these characters would introduce into provincia, their failure to leave Mexico City probably relates to the presentation of the capital as inescapable. Imagining provincia in its absence also avoids reference to the social problems there, such as poverty, that would confront transplanted characters. Hence, recent popular Mexican films, including Amores perros (2000), De la calle (2001), and Amar te duele (2002), kill or injure young characters before they carry out their plans for escape from the capital. (1) Even when Mexico City characters do not die, it is still possible that their dream of escape will not materialize on the screen. In Ciudades oscuras (2002), two prostitutes end the film with a plan to leave Mexico City and take their children to provincia. The film does not include the actual escape. From the perspective of Mexico City then, provincia represents an unfulfilled illusion and serves the ends of cinematic fantasy rather than documentary-like realism.
If one looks beyond the thematic element of provincia as an unattainable goal and concentrates on the larger category of a portrayal of doomed Mexico City youth, a cluster of Mexican films emerges. Along with Amores perros, De la calle, Amar te duele, and Ciudades oscuras, a young person dies amidst a contemporary and corrupt Mexico City in Lolo (1992), Elisa antes del fin del mundo (1997), Peak, me de violetas (2000), and Nicotina (2003). Thus, with the exception of comedies, contemporary Mexican films set within Mexico City share a pessimistic unity: the potential freedom and accompanying happiness imagined for provincia never comes to pass. Characters' consistent fatality in the capital is important because it differs from the principal handling of provincia in films that take place outside the capital.
Of course, provincial settings occasionally fall short of paradise. In cinematic provincia, characters sometimes die or fail to overcome social barriers. Youths in provincia die at the end of Bandidos (1990) and El crimen del padre Amaro (2002), while Dos crimenes (1993), La habitacion azul (2002), and Las lloronas (2004) stage murder and social entrapment in provincia. Japon (2002) combines lush Mexican mountainsides with an accident that kills young and old alike, and Vera (2001) begins with the demise of its elderly protagonist and proceeds to depict a journey toward death. Yet perhaps a majority of recent Mexican cinema set in provincia presents the freedom of life outside the capital. This theme emerges in both historic and contemporary provincial settings, even without relying on the genre of comedy. In fact, recent Mexican films with a historical setting tend to locate characters in provincia. Given the censorship that some critics identify as the reason for the scarcity of Mexican historical cinema, provincia seems to suggest a place of greater liberty for the people behind the movies as well as the characters in them. (2)
This cinematic recourse to provincial freedom in some ways contradicts the portrayal of provincia in Mexican cinema cultivated in the comedia ranchera or ranch comedy. The immensely popular and exportable comedia ranchera contrasts with early sound films also set in provincia and their initial interest in social denunciation and serious meditation of the Mexican Revolution, as exemplified by El compadre Mendoza (1933) and Vamonos con Pancho Villa (1935). Fernando de Fuentes, the same director responsible for the aforementioned Revolutionary-themed films, creates the style for subsequent works by filming the first comedia ranchera, Alla en el Rancho Grande (1936). The genre exploits quaintly Mexican elements, such as mariachis and cockfights, rather than the Revolution, in order to celebrate a hero who does not challenge the status quo. Carl J. Mora explains that by and large the role of the charro or ranchero protagonist is to endorse traditional and Catholic values (47). Jorge Ayala Blanco's criticism affirms this view; he comments that as a placid and conciliatory genre, the comedia ranchera essentially disagrees with its own epoch (72). Clearly then, the comedia ranchera and its use of provincia as a backdrop for little-questioned social stability contradicts many recent provincial films concerning the discovery and exercise of individual freedom that withholds strict support for the status quo. Hence, for some contemporary protagonists, a trip to provincia aims for liberation from a murderous past, as in Bajo California (1998), Rito terminal (1999), El gavilan de la sierra (2001), and Un cuento de hadas para dormir cocodrilos (2002).
Liberation in provincia also takes on concerns related to feminism. Un dulce olor a muerte (1998) shows provincia as the setting for a young man's rejection of machismo. La mujer de Benjamin (1991), Sin dejar huella (2000), and Una de dos (2001) concern at least one Mexican woman character who comes to understand possibilities for greater autonomy in contemporary provincia. In La mujer de Benjamin this liberty is not so much explored as hinted at during the conclusion of the film. Sin dejar huella and Una de dos show a journey toward greater independence that proves circular because each pair of women characters comes to appreciate liberties possessed from the beginning. A factor that seems to influence full development of feminist freedom is the chronological setting. Sexually expressive women characters rebel against their submissive roles in the provincial and historical Como agua para chocolate (1992) and Otilia Rauda, La mujer delpueblo (2001), but then die for love. Consequently, the first half of the twentieth century appears inhospitable for the practical exercise of feminism in cinematic provincia.
In accord with recent Mexico City films' emphasis on social entrapment, some contemporary films that illustrate the liberating effects of contemporary provincia begin in the city and then shift to a provincial setting. Lola (1989), Danzon (1991), Por la libre (2000), El misterio del Trinidad (2001), and Y tu mama tambien find a sort of liberation at the beach. Lola ends with the suggestion that a decaying...
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