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FILM: Oscar Nominations – for Mexicans or Mexican Filmmaking?

Diego Cevallos

MEXICO CITY, Feb 22 2007 (IPS) - Millions will be glued to their television sets in Mexico this Sunday to watch the 79th Academy Awards ceremony in the United States, where Mexican artists and filmmakers have been nominated in 16 categories.

This unprecedented number of nominations is a tribute to a generation of film artists, now aged 30 to 45 years old, who emigrated to the United States in search of opportunities, as over 400,000 Mexicans do every year.

“Babel”, a film by Alejandro González Iñárritu, has been nominated for seven awards, including best film and best director, from the U.S. Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. It is followed by “Pan’s Labyrinth” by Guillermo del Toro, with six nominations, and “Children of Men” by Alfonso Cuarón, with three.

Although U.S. actors and technicians worked in these films, most of the nominees – in categories such as screenplay, cinematography and supporting actor – received their professional training in Mexico.

However, observers say that the achievements of the nominees should not be interpreted as a triumph for the Mexican film industry.

“The truth is that this is not recognition for Mexico, but for talented Mexicans who are working in another country and produce films with foreign capital,” said Pedro Armendáriz, president of the Mexican Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences.

Raquel Peguero, author of “Humo en los ojos” (Smoke Gets in Your Eyes), a book about Mexican filmmaking, concurred. The Hollywood accolades are “for films made by Mexicans, not for Mexican films,” she said.

Other observers disagree. “Small-minded critics who say this is not Mexican cinema, but foreign films in which Mexicans are participating, are just another example of the old ‘sour grapes’ complex,” said El Universal newspaper columnist Ricardo Rocha.

The three films with Mexican directors nominated for Oscar awards in Hollywood, the mecca of Western commercial cinema, were produced with foreign funds, and actors and technicians from several countries.

But “Babel”, “Pan’s Labyrinth” and “Children of Men” address in masterly fashion themes that critics consider to be far from commercial.

To say that these films do not represent Mexican cinema “would be tantamount to saying the great Gabo (Nobel Literature Prize-winner Gabriel García Márquez) was not Colombian because he wrote ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’ in Mexico,” Rocha said.

Film critic Rey Ojeda said it is useless to try to distinguish between who is being rewarded: Mexican cinema or a group of Mexicans.

“They are Mexicans making films in a global market. Perhaps the best description is that this is globalised Mexican filmmaking,” Ojeda told IPS.

Mexican directors, writers, actors, photographers, set hands, sound engineers and others all worked on these films, he pointed out.

The global success of González Iñárritu, Del Toro and Cuarón has awakened great interest among the Mexican public, and their films have been reshown in recent days. The media in Mexico are also preparing extensive coverage for the Oscar awards night, to be transmitted live to the world from Hollywood’s Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles, California.

The three directors, who are close friends, left Mexico a few years ago with ideas, projects, and the desire to find opportunities to capture them on celluloid.

González Iñárritu was the first, with the film “Amores perros” (Love’s a Bitch), made entirely in Mexico in 2000, which achieved international recognition. Then he made “21 Grams” in the United States, and in 2006 “Babel”, which was filmed in several countries.

Del Toro also first found fame in Mexico with his fantasy movie “Cronos” in 1993. He then headed to the United States where he directed films like “Blade II” and “Hellboy”. In 2001 he made “El espinazo del diablo” (The Devil’s Backbone) in Spain, where he also directed “Pan’s Labyrinth” in 2006.

Cuarón began directing films outside of Mexico borders in the 1990s, but regularly returned to work in his country. His first film, “A Tale of Love and Hysteria”, took him to the United States, where he directed “A Little Princess”. Although it was not a commercial success, it earned several Oscar nominations.

Then came “And Your Mother Too”, one of his best-known films, made in Mexico in 2001. In 2004 he directed the blockbuster “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban”, and in 2006 “Children of Men”.

Alongside these directors is a generation of cameramen, screenwriters and actors who have also worked successfully in the United States and other countries, such as actors Diego Luna, Gael García Bernal and Salma Hayek, and cameramen Emmanuel Lubezki and Ramiro Prieto.

They often work together. “Babel” was directed by González Iñárritu and the screenplay was written by Guillermo Arriaga, who is also from Mexico.

“Babel” has received major distinctions, like the Golden Globe for best picture, awarded by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, and prizes for best director and editing at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival. “Pan’s Labyrinth” took the BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) award for best foreign film, regarded as the British equivalent to the Oscar.

Ojeda said that this moment of fame for Mexican artists can be compared to the glory days of cinema in this country in the 1940s and 1950s, when directors like Emilio “El Indio” Fernández and Ismael Rodríguez sparkled, along with stars like María Félix, Dolores del Río, Sara García, Pedro Infante, Mario Moreno “Cantinflas” and Jorge Negrete.

Filmmaking during that period was entirely funded by the Mexican film industry, which competed successfully on the international market. To a certain extent it was filling the breach left by lack of film production in the United States and Europe, immersed in the Second World War and the post-war reconstruction.

In the 1950s, an average of nearly 108 movies a year were made in Mexico, a number that has not been seen since. Today only 40 pictures a year are made.

Mexican filmmaking has suffered a severe crisis in recent years for lack of funding, to the point that in 1995 critics declared the industry dead. But directors and actors who have succeeded on the international scene, as well as those who continue to work in Mexico, have kept it alive.