Güeros (2015)

Pretty Good

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Sombra and Santos are aimless youths in Mexico City. There is a student strike at the University and the guys are striking against the strike. Sombra is surprised to find Tomás at his apartment. He's been sent there by their mother. Mexican rock musician Epigmenio Cruz is supposedly hospitalized and Tomás wants to visit him. The guys search for him and encounter a series of incidents.The first forty minutes are aimless. It's a lazy hazy afternoon of nothing dramatic. It could be a lost start and then the road trip happens. The situations get more interesting. It's all in black and white. It has a dreamy quality. It has some compelling moments and an overall feel of adventure.

This starts with the story of Tomas who is sent to stay with his older brother in Mexico City after a water filled balloon incident goes awry. On arrival he finds his bro, Sombra living with his friend Santos in a flat where they steal electricity from a neighbour and are on strike from being on strike at the local University. Essentially what follows are scenes that are linked together by dint of the fact they are linked together. The subtle stories and plots are full of satire and swipes at society but without ever unpacking what that means. It is filmed in black and white in a narrow ratio aspect so at once looks out of place in line with the characters themselves. It is also art house but without trying to be – there is even a breaking of the fourth wall in places – which took me by surprise and that is what this film is about – surprising you by the ordinary. Part love story, part coming of age, part road trip and part search for a lost rock genius, this is a film that refuses to be type cast and is better for it.The actors all play this straight in that it just looks unrehearsed and they are adlibbing but you know that is far from the truth. This will not be to everybody's taste – if you like a start a middle and an end then probably best to avoid this but if you like to see things differently and are prepared for a journey that is as aimless as it is vital then you are probably going to really enjoy this really charming Mexican film.

A voguish feature debut from Mexican filmmaker Alonso Riuzpalacios, shot entirely in Black and White with an uncommon 1.37:1 aspect ratio. GUEROS is a pristine debut full of promise but also sink into the filmmaker's own ideal existential wallow.In the opening scenes, the film directly prints the explanation of the word "güeros" on the screen, in case us foreign audience cannot catch the meaning, and it proposes two options, it is either a discrimination against colour or against homosexuality. And the film only deals one of the two. Set the backdrop of an undefined time (where Walkman is still popular, I suppose, should be in the 90s), Tomás (Aguirre) is a young boy lived with his widow mother, being too naughty, he is sent to live with his big brother Federico aka. Sombra (Huerta), who is a college student living with his roommate Santos (Ortizgris) in their messy apartment.While the university students are in the middle of a massive strike. The trio lay around in the apartment doing nothing. Since Tomás is a devotee of an over-the-hill musician Epigmenio Cruz (Charpener), who is sent to hospital due to poor health, the news triggers his quest to find him and ask for an autograph. So the story maunders around a two-day road trip, en route they visit the hospital, bump into some dangerous thug, reunite with Ana (Salas), a fervent activist student in the campus, party-crash, go to the zoo while Sombra has to face his worst nightmare, a tiger, and eventually track down Epigmenio in a remote cantina. Ostensibly, it is another plot-doesn't-matter ethos-journey combined with political agenda, budding romance, surrealistic touch, fly-on-the-wall realism and the dry humour.The picture exudes appealing élan thanks to its swift camera movement, monochromatic freshness and the idiosyncratic treatment of the fictional Cruz's music - a muffled void defies categorisation. But, the momentum doesn't hold up, soon, the journey deflates into an aimless wander, pry into the underbelly of a contemporary Mexico but never reach a cinematic catharsis or produce any prospective worth of excitement, the main characters are bankrupt of any empathy or charisma to keep up audience's attention of their often arbitrary behaviour. It is a film eventually fails to live up to its master-class craftsmanship, but considering its successful tournament in the international festival circuits, I might again find myself in a minority of one, to each his own taste, GÜEROS doesn't emerge as a comprehensively outstanding film in spite of its uniqueness.

Gueros, the title refers to light-skinned or blonde-haired Mexicans as explained by the character in the film Santos; it also implies Gueros have it easier than their darker looking fellows. Director Ruizpalacios debut film is a Mexican indie film in which two brothers; Fede aka Sombra and younger Tomas along with Santos waste their lives living in a flat while those around them stage a massive student demonstration. Such politics is the backdrop of this playful, self critiquing yet grounded film in which the siblings embark on a search for an folk singer. Although the local college students have been boycotting the university for the past 163 days, Sombra not participating lays about in his apartment "on strike from the strike" with Santos. When his brother Tomas arrives and grows tired of that life in couple of days, they decide to search and pay respects to hospital stricken musician Epigmenio Cruz. They listened to his cassette, and believed his music drove Bob Dylan to tears. But the protests are never out of the picture as the journey takes a detour to the University with filmmaking breaking barriers into documentary style imagery informing us of the revolution and its cause, also at the same time filmmaker keeps it lighthearted with self criticisms of Mexican cinema like "We grab a bunch of beggars and shoot in black & white". "Gueros" isn't a film making some statement with a dramatic climax but rather is fulfilling journey giving its characters a realization of their place in society.