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Provincia in Recent Mexican Cinema, 1989-2004

2004; Wayne State University Press; Volume: 26; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/dis.2005.0015

1522-5321

Emily Hind,

Latin American and Latino Studies

Provincia in Recent Mexican Cinema, 1989-2004 Emily Hind (bio) 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 mamá también (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 [End Page 26] 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), Perfume 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 crímenes (1993), La habitación azul (2002), and Las lloronas (2004) [End Page 27] stage murder and...