- I think the movie has been successful,
because it portrays a very specific reality that exists
briefly in a time and a space that are no more.
And it talks about things that are evanescent of go away,
both in terms of our culture and in our identity.
Is a movie about exile, is a movie that by being particular
has been common universal,
and it can connect with everyone,
because they think the true artist
has a specificity that comes from truth,
and this movie is all truth.
And it tells you a story about,
the essential disenfranchisement of a young man
and a society that changes right before his eyes.
He leaves for a moment, he's in exile for a moment,
and finds himself a stranger in a stranger land,
and then comes back to his country
to be an exile within that country,
because what it was has changed.
I think that is rare, a movie that you will find being done
so early in the career of a young filmmaker,
that has the wisdom,
and complete control of a medium that is formally impeccable
but at the same time, very, very free narratively.
And I think, those qualities which are very unusual
at any moment in a filmography,
are there present these early in this film.
And I think is one of the most memorable
Mexican film in the last couple of decades.
- I fully agree.
And also, because it's a film
that doesn't really have a reference
in Mexican cinema before.
Is a film that challenges the ideas of formulas
to create its own cinematic narrative,
in which, that completely supportive on time and space.
And the thing is that time and space
is not the element in which it flows,
but is part of the point of the film.
In which how the contrast between two spaces,
two spaces that are sharing the same dimension of time,
and the contrast that they are curious like such.
And because of that is a film about identity,
it's an identity and the certainty of our identities,
the defense of our identities,
the challenge of how supported our identities are,
how much our identities are based upon an external facade.
And that's a reason I think is truly universal,
because the film has same as
it played fantastically well in Mexico,
he has play all around the world in certain countries,
it's been like embrace as if its was their own.
And besides that,
is guiding us through a very fenace culture
that we're all very unfamiliar with.
And to ease us, if you go to another planet
but everything takes place,
here in planet earth, not only in planet earth,
but in our case, Guillermo, you and me, in our country.
- Yeah. - And in one hand
it feels so alien,
but the human experience is what is makes it so universal.
- Yeah, because the reality is that this movie
is portraying a movement that came and went basically,
and when people say, "Well, you're Mexican."
Well, there is so many Mexicos,
even within Monterrey itself where it happens,
there are many Mexicos in Monterrey.
One is a Monterrey of the rich people,
one is a Monterrey of the middle-class,
and one is a Monterrey of cultures
that exist in the periphery,
now outside of the big urban areas.
And that even that reality, when you see
and when he comes back, it has completely changed.
We say in Mexico, that our country gets reinvented
every six years, because we got a new president,
and this movie shows you that is much faster than that,
is the beginning of a change
in which he was not present, the protagonist,
and therefore, he doesn't belong
to what he thought was his home, is not home anymore.
And the movie, I feel also from a visual point of view,
is absolutely remarkable. - It is amazing.
- The cinematography, the camera movement, all the beauty
that it brings with the pain semantically.
- Yes, and how on the state it is in one hand,
and how powerful it is.
And what is really, really heartbreaking
is our character who's completely
like protecting and defending his identity,
and to go back, and to see that that world is gone.
- Yes. - And how's he going to fit?
Who's he going to be now?
- But I think the beauty of the movie,
and it's a very painful and beautiful movie at the same time
is that as you say,
it presents you with the usual melodramatic choices
and discards them. - Oh, yeah.
Challenge all your expectations.
You told me that, when you called me
and said you have to watch this movie,
you have to see it, and see what it's about,
you have to see it.
And you told me,
you're going to have some expectations of where it's going,
and he's not going to go there.
And it's actually going to challenge that expectation,
and he's going to go into another place
that is much more truthful and powerful
and also truthful.
- Yeah, and the fact is it ends spoilers ahead, right?
(laughs)
It ends telling you,
that we're all at the end dancing alone,
dancing alone in the middle of nowhere. (cross talking)
And even loneliness in collectivity.
- In collectivity, is a loneliness in collectivity,
and then arriving to another place
in which he supposed to be the outsider,
and to connect with other people
that are maybe even lonelier than him.
Like, when he meets this girl,
that is the daughter of immigrants, an immigrants
that's struggling herself, because
now she's trying to become fully American,
while she's still not fully.
While our character is just refuses
anything that is not who he is.
And the heartbreaking thing again,
is to go back and to realize that
what he built everything upon has disappeared.
- There's a very, very wise decision-making in this movie
from the team that created it,
and which they don't succumb
to things that would be emotionally uplifting
or emotionally counterfeited,
to bring a reaction from the audience.
I think, it truly is a remarkable film
that everybody has to see.
Well, I think Mexican cinema requires of talents
like Fernando, to continue,
he inherits a mantle that comes from,
that you can trace back to the Golden Era of Mexican cinema,
with somebody like the Tin-Tan, who was a comedian
that for the first time articulated
the binational nature of Mexico
flowing back and forth from the United States,
and still creating a personal culture
from that transitory state.
And each generation of filmmakers
maintains Mexican cinema alive in the world,
even now, when the moment is very difficult
because the government support for Mexican cinema
is evanescent, or vanishing.
And is important he's also in fulfilling,
I think the essential thirst for truth
that we have in cinema, we want people to show us the truth.
We want people to show us realities that are not ours,
even if we exist in the same country,
and we existed at the same time
to show us things that are evanescent and ephemeris,
but precisely because of that precious, and as valuable,
because their permanence has gone deed by the system,
but exists outside of it.
The terricolous or stubborns, which is the nickname
of the characters collectively in the film,
represents that the acts of disobedience
and stubbornness, are essential in Mexico for us to survive
in a country where every breath, every heartbeat,
is an act of will and vitalist.
And absolutely necessary to survive against
all the things that are present characters in the periphery,
the police, the drug dealers, the societal pressure.
This is a movie that tells us that
essentially we are all dancing alone in the end,
and to do that, he needs to show us
the isolation of every character,
and how they are divided by class, by money, by nationality,
and then they can group together.
- Yeah, and I think also Fernando is,
I think he has proven to be not only
one of the most important directors in Mexico,
but I think he's proven to be, showing to be
one of the truly important directors that the world has.
What he did with his film, there's no reference for it,
there's no reference for it in Mexican cinema for instance,
is a truly original.
And I think that that's part of the power of the film,
is that you're invited to go into these very specific world,
in this very specific vision of this filmmaker.
Yeah, and with that wisdom that he approached his locations
to make them absolutely truthful and genuine.
He also approach his casting, with the casting people
that are absolutely truthful to each one of these parts,
most of them non-actors, or maybe all of them,
both in the U.S. and in Mexico, as you said.
But also, creating this or recreating
these jams that they have of dancing,
and being able to create the complicity
among all of these actors he's working with.
So, I think that this kind of films, they need to be made,
and they need to be supported.
But in Mexico that now is going through challenging times
in terms of production, but in the world,
I think that filmmakers like Fernando,
represent the torch for what is to come.
And Fernando, for me is already an inspiration,
and I believe that he will be an inspiration as well
for generations to come,
and from a people of his own generation,
that they can see that what matters
is really the owner's vision, the original vision.
- It's true also, that for me
the most (indistinct) virtual of the film
is that it wasn't made,
I didn't got made because the terricolous or stubborns,
that's a perfect way to define Mexican filmmakers.
We have kept them alive generation by generation,
by doing impossible defiance
and sustaining always that
each of their assistance is a miracle.
Just like this guys that are oppress by so many things,
but understand that for the moment they're dancing,
and for that moment, they're alive,
that is the essence of making a film in Mexico.
Things are against us, things are difficult,
but for the moment, we dance.
(singing in foreign language)