Lila Avilés' pitch-perfect THE CHAMBERMAID gives Oscar-winner Roma a run for its money

It's not simply that both films are from Mexico, nor that their leading ladies seem to have an awfully lot in common, nor that Alfonso Cuarón's Roma and Lila Avilés' THE CHAMBERMAID tackle class, race, and the dominant culture so very well. It's all this and more. Specifically, both movies offer up the plight of maids/caretakers in Mexico. Though Roma's works for a somewhat wealthy bourgeois family several decades in the past, while Ms Avilés' labors in a present-day, high-class hotel, not a whole lot appears to have changed for the country's indigenous underclass. Even more astonishing, The Chambermaid proves Roma's artistic equal in many ways.

Granted, we don't have that gorgeous black-and-white cinematography to salivate over, but the excellent color work by Carlos Rossini brings a crisp documentary-like sheen to all we see -- from the mammoth laundry room and maintenance quarters to the exquisitely designed hotel rooms that would seem to have genuinely earned this establishment its five stars.

Even more surprising is the fact that Ms Avilés, shown at right, who both directed and co-wrote (with Juan Carlos Marquéz) has kept us viewers in a single location through her entire film. Yet so full of fascinating life and detail are the (very long) days our heroine must put in at her place of employment that each scene we observe holds us enthralled.

When, at last, in the film's final shot, we see the street outside, TrustMovies was suddenly jolted into the awareness that he'd been kept inside the hotel for the entire duration. And he had not minded at all. This is thanks in equal measure to Avilés, her crack technical staff, and especially her exceptional leading lady, the wonderful Gabriela Cartol, shown above and below. Ms Cartol may initially appear, as her character Evelia, rather mousy and unprepossessing, but by the finale, I suspect you will find her, as did I, beautiful, intelligent, enterprising, sexy and as full of life as you could ever want any woman to be.

Along the way, we discover many different aspects of Evelia's existence -- how she works (and what a very good worker she is), her life outside the hotel (even though we only hear and/or hear about this), her co-workers, and even to an extent (in a very surprising scene) her "love" life. We get a feeling for how things "work" at this hotel -- politically and otherwise -- even we meet a few of the hotel's guests. And, yes, they're just as wealthy and entitled as you might imagine. But they're also not -- some of them, at least -- total creeps.

There's a GED class on premises, too, as well as a possible promotion in store for our girl, and maybe even a lovely red dress she has found and placed "dibs" on, should it not be claimed by the guest who left it. There's a child (the infant of a guest) for whom she is suddenly caring during her busy day, along with her own child, whom it is clear she seldom sees. And there's a funny, slightly strange co-worker (played with great verve and humor by Teresa Sánchez, above and below, right) who bonds with Evelia, even as she uses her.

By the finale, you'll be as firmly in the shoes and soul of Evelia as would seem possible in the space of just 102 minutes in this graceful, lean-yet-packed look at the Mexican workplace that offers up class, economics and culture without ever jamming its ideas down our throats or creating typical hiss-worthy villains. Oh, everything's there, all right, but the great strength of the movie is how Evelia can, by virtue of character, rise above it.
Well, almost.

From Kino Lorber, in Spanish with English subtitles, The Chambermaid has its U.S. theatrical premiere this coming Wednesday, June 26, in New York City at Film Forum. The following Friday, July 5, it opens in San Francisco (at the Roxie) and Los Angeles (at Laemmle's Royal) before venturing out to a few more cities. Click here to view all currently scheduled playdates and theaters.

NO DRESS CODE REQUIRED: Cristina Herrera Borquez's tracks Mexican same-sex marriage

Whatever any of us have had to go through to finalize our same-sex marriage, including, I suspect, even Americans who live in the South (remember Kentucky clerk Kim Davis?), our journey will probably pale when compared to that of Victor and Fernando, two guys who own a beauty salon in the Mexican state of Baja California and who want to get married, once the Supreme Court of the country of Mexico has given its imprimatur to same-sex matrimony. If only the city of Mexicali, where they plan to wed, could see its way clear to abide by Federal law. Good luck with that.

NO DRESS CODE REQUIRED (Etiqueta no rigurosa), the new documentary by Cristina Herrera Borquez (shown at left) follows this sweet and intelligent couple as it decides to wed and prepares for the upcoming nuptials. From the outset, these two guys make an adorable pair: They're fun and funny, and when the tide takes a turn for the deep and dark, they buckle down and fight. They are helped enormously by their two lawyers -- one gay, the other straight -- who not only know their legal stuff but are willing to go that extra mile not only often but, as it turns out, any time of the day or night. We should all have such fine men in our corner.

Ms Borquez's doc gives us a little history of the two guys -- Victor, above, is in the front seat, Fernando in the back -- their families and the manner in which each man dealt with his homosexuality and his understanding of it from early on. (One of their mothers asks only that her son not be the one in the wedding party who carries the bouquet.) We're there with them as they take the required "pre-marital education" course, in which they are told, "You have to invite God into the bedroom before you have sex."

Despite the Supreme Court's ruling that same-sex marriage is now legal, Mexicali's mayor, city clerk and other officials, as well as a good portion of the public, rejects this law. As one of these "officials" notes in passing, "They are only five men. They don't understand how so many more of us feel here in our city."

What these officials put our boys and their lawyers through, over and over again, will probably have you climbing the wall. It isn't simply shocking and indefensible, it is as obviously fraudulent, as well as mean-spirited and nasty, as you will find. (The post-wedding finale, as one of the lawyers muses aloud, is a must-see/hear. He quietly speaks volumes as to politics, history and what the fight for our rights really means -- and costs.)

I am not sure how many of us could take the same journey as did Victor and Fernando and see it through to the finish. But they, their lawyers, family and friends manage it, while keeping spirits as high as possible, which helps quell the anger that will keep popping up in viewers. There is a lengthy scene midway in the movie, detailing how local officials try to stymie the two marriage applicants, that is a keeper of sorts: a test case in how prejudice and injustice will use any and every means imaginable to stop what it so thoroughly hates.

Ms Borquez might have shown us a tad more dissension between our two heroes, just so we're reminded that they're human beings. Still, it is hard not to appreciate and love these two guys, as much for what they've been through as what they stand for. They're icons, all right, of Mexico and the gay rights movement, both of which they make proud.

From Outsider Pictures, No Dress Code Required opens theatrically in New York City at the Village East Cinema this Friday, November 3, with a limited national release to follow.

Isaac Ezban's THE SIMILARS takes smart, low-budget sci-fi to a new high-water mark

It is so rare to encounter a genuine original, especially in the realm of science fiction/horror, that when a movie like THE SIMILARS (Los parecidos) arrives, one is quite heavily tempted to stand up and cheer. This new movie from Mexican filmmaker Isaac Ezban is so immediately engrossing and unusual that you'll hooked within a minute or two. Then it simply gets better and better until... oh, my god.

And while it is vastly amusing in a manner than becomes darker and darker, it is also so rich and strange that its humor -- which is completely organic and never slick or precious -- is as pivotal and important to the film as are its scares and surprises, of which there are many. Señor Ezban, pictured at right, has taken a great idea and run with it so far, fast and completely that its ramifications keep unfurling as his film moves along until they reach a brilliant ending that in no way disappoints.

This in itself is pretty spectacular. That the filmmaker keep you gasping and smiling in equal proportion every step of the way is even more amazing. The plot? Let's just say that a group of disparate people have been forced to gather at a small, out-of-the-way bus station due to a staggering rainstorm that seems to be hitting the entire world simultaneously. Impossible? Quite.

Ezban sets his movie back in 1968, and this makes it even more intriguing because it can then incorporate much that was going on at the time -- from student unrest and the music of the era to the effects of acid rain -- and it does this is an equally unsettling manner, leaving things open to further discussion, except that everything moves so fast that discussion (or even much thought) is the last thing these characters, along with their audience, have time for.

The filmmaker has assembled a crack cast to do his bizarre bidding -- he both wrote and directed the movie -- beginning with an fine actor you may have seen in another unusual Mexican film called Leap Year: Gustavo Sánchez Parra (above, left), who plays the first arrival at this nearly deserted bus station. There is also a pretty and very pregnant young woman (Cassandra Ciangherotti, above, right, and below). Both are trying to get to Mexico City, which seems to be blocked off due to the rain.

A very odd indigenous woman who does not speak Spanish is also present, along with the ticket seller named Martin, and a young female friend of his, as well. Soon will arrive a woman and her young son (below) who is clearly in need of medical help, along with a young man who may just be one of those student revolutionaries we keep hearing about on the bus station radio, the reception for which repeatedly goes in and out.

Once this group has arrived, the plot unfurls. From here it is mostly a matter of what is happening -- I'll tell you right now that it's a lulu -- and then why this is happening (which turns out to be even more bizarre). There's some blood and gore, all right, but mostly, there is amazement coupled to odd, dark humor at the very weird situation here.

Comparison has been made to the old TV series, The Twilight Zone, but I'll tell you right now that this film is better, richer, more thoroughly thought out than any Twilight Zone I ever saw. Ezban's filming technique is to drain almost all color so that, initially, the movie looks like it was filmed in black and white. But then we catch sight of a little light blue, or yellow. Or, ummm...yes, red.

So much depends on what is happening visually here that for awhile I wondered why the print looked like something redolent of an old (and not that hot) videotape. There is a reason for this, too: In order to show us what he wants us to see, the moviemaker must ensure that his film always looks a little muddy so that the premier visual effect here -- and it's a knock-out -- will be believable. We see, but often not all that clearly. But we see enough to always understand what is happening.

OK: enough said. If you sci-fi/horror/mystery/creep-out aficionados aren't yet hooked enough to make sure you view this movie, then I give up. I've done my part without -- I hope -- delivering a single spoiler. God knows, Señor Ezban has done his part by making one of the finest, most assured and original genre films in the long and varied history of low-budget sci-fi.

From XLrator Media and running a sleek 89 minutes, the movie is said to have opened in theaters yesterday (I cannot find a single one of them, however). But its distributor promises that it will open on cable VOD this coming Tuesday, November 15, and then via iTunes and digital platforms the following Tuesday, November 22.  I urge you -- nay, I command you -- to seek it the fuck out. 

Can Mexico get any worse, movie-wise? View Amat Escalante's HELI and then we'll discuss....

If Oliver Stone's glossily over-the-top (and-up-through-the-asshole) Savages, followed by the more recent every-single-character-is-a-fucking-philosopher The Counselor didn't quell your desire for a visit to Mexico, then by all means take a chance on HELI, the new film from Amat Escalante (he's a Spaniard, actually), which has one scene of such shocking power and torture-porn possibili-ties that I think I can safely say you'll have seen nothing like it in either an arthouse or mainstream movie.

While this scene singles out the film for a queasy remembrance, Señor Escalante, shown at left, offers a tale of a poor and relatively uneducated family residing in the Mexican stix and characters who seem only marginally acquainted with the place in which they live and the people -- including their family, co-workers and friends (if they have any, that is) who live there, too. Perhaps this is exactly how it is in this area of Mexico. Still, at times, the movie's main character, the eponymous Heli, seems woefully unintelligent, at other moments, he's sharper than you'd expect. Ditto everyone around him, from his wife, his father, his younger sister, her older (but still a child) policeman-in-training boyfriend, and the police officers who "investigate" the slaughter that soon occurs.

You either, I think, accept all this and move on with the film, or you simply shut down as you wonder why you should pay attention to characters this dumb. You want to care for Heli (Armando Espitia, above) and his crew, but Escalante makes it more than a little difficult. His movie raises again the question: How do you make the lower classes real without seeming slow and/or boring? Ah -- just toss in a little uber-violence!

Do these folk know what cocaine is? Of course they do. Do they know about the drug cartels and the power these have. Most certainly. So why do they behave so stupidly, first to last? And why does not the cartel kill Heli when it has the opportunity? Well, then there would be no movie -- which, in the shape it's in, lasts too long by maybe fifteen minutes. I'd have been willing to sit even longer, though, had Escalante given me more genuine specifics.

As for the venal and corrupt police officers, at least the female of the two seems to want sex more than money, which is a switch of sorts -- while allowing us to view some very appealing cleavage, fully exposed: This filmmaker knows well what will sell his film. Despite his heavy-duty nods to the marketplace, I suspect Escalante is trying to be truthful to the behavior of someone like his main character, and so does not give him much of a backstory filled with undue exposition. Unfortunately, he doesn't give him much of a current story, either.

We're made privy to very little here -- not the younger sister's conversa-tions with her school mates, in which the boyfriend and cocaine tale would certainly come out and she'd be thoroughly warned about him and his actions. (If I know that local police officers and drug cartels are connected, I'd wager these kids do, too.) Likewise, Heli seems to have no friends at all -- on the job or elsewhere -- with which he'd share parts of his life.

So we go from event to event, most of them damned huge and life-changing (or ending). We're shocked, certainly, disgusted and frightened, and end up feeling, as we usually do, that Mexico is one of the larger cesspools of the world, for which there's no clean-up scheduled (or even possible) anytime soon. The cast, made up of mostly newcomers, achieves as good a likeness to reality as possible under these circumstances. (One of the investigating cops is played by the film's co-writer, Gabriel Reyes.)

From Outsider Pictrures, Heli -- which won the Best Director prize at last year's Cannes Film Fest and was nominated for the Palme d'Or -- opens this Friday, June 13, in New York City (at the Cinema Village), Los Angeles (at Laemmle's Playhouse 7 and Noho 7), and San Diego (at the Digital Gym Cinema). In the weeks to come it will hit Seattle, Chicago and San Francisco. To see all scheduled playdates, click here and then click on Now in Cinemas near the top of the screen.

AFA fetes new Mexican cinema; first up -- Nicolás Pereda and SUMMER OF GOLIATH

Like Mexican movies? Want to see more of 'em? New York City's Anthology Film Archives, Cinema Tropical and the Mexican Cultural Institute of New York are launching a new "film initiative" that will be popping in and out of view over the summer. Dedicated to celebrating, as the AFA press release puts it,  "the vigorous revitalization of recent Mexican cinema and featuring some of its most exciting and celebrated emerging directors," the initiative showcases works by these directors and includes three parts, which features two theatrical premieres. The first of these begins tomorrow -- Friday, July 8 -- with one week's worth of screenings of the films (including the New York theatrical premiere of SUMMER OF GOLIATH) of a Mexican filmmaker TrustMovies had never heard of: Nicolás Pereda.

Helpful for me and anyone else with limited knowledge of Pereda, who is shown at right, AFA and its co-hosts are offering several of his films so that, coming away from the week dedicated to his work (The Films of Nicolás Pereda, July 8-14), we'll have a pretty good sense of who the guy is, film-wise.

According to the press materials, Pereda -- at only 27 years -- is one of the rising stars of contemporary Mexican cinema, with a body of work comprising five extraordinary feature-length films and one short. Widely screened – and acclaimed – on the film festival circuit, his films "combine aspects of some of the most notable trends in contemporary world cinema, including elements of deadpan minimalism, slacker cinema, the documentary/fiction hybrid, and long-take formalism."

Having seen at this point only Pereda’s Summer of Goliath (photos, above and below), winner of the Best Film prize in the Orizzonti section at the Venice Film Festival 2010), I can attest to those "trends" being present -- particularly the documentary/narrative mash-up -- though as to how well they work together, I am not entirely convinced.  

SOG, as I'll now call it for the sake of space and undue repetition, begins quite like a documentary, as someone -- the filmmaker? -- questions young kids who are relatives and friends of the boy Goliath, and the boy himself (above), about a murder he is supposed to have committed but of which we immediately have our doubts. Then we cut to a long shot -- in fuzzy focus -- of a woman walking and dragging a large, heavy bag along with her. She stops and adjusts the bag. Is there a body in it, we wonder? Nah. Nothing so obvious. Or at least, so we eventually decide. 

This fuzzy focus appears now and then as the film continues, and I am not sure what it means. Questionable happenings or truthfulness? Perhaps things we would not want to see, or the characters would not have us learn about them? That woman carrying the sack, it turns out, suffers greatly because her man has left her for another woman. Their son and his friend, recently expelled from the military, spend their time trying to out-macho each other and threatening a local senior. The son also carries an unrequited torch for a village girl, who'll have nothing to do with him -- probably just as well, we decide. There's lots of anger here; is this is macho society on it last legs?

The woman's best friend, the much older lady (at right), tries to keep body and soul together selling old catalogs which no one wants. She also dispenses advice to her love-bereft pal. All this takes place in the countryside, and quite beautiful it is: rich and verdant and perhaps not used to its full capacity. You could say the same about all the people here. For all its beauty, sadness and waste hang over the movie like a shroud. Or am I perceiving this third-world view through the eyes of first-world entitlement? Mexicans would probably understand and make much more of the film than am I. 

In any case, SOG is never uninteresting, with its often crisp images only accentuating the "fudgy" sense of responsibility its characters possess. The film ambles along, showing but rarely telling (a style I usually prefer, though sometimes, as in this case, understandable connections are that much harder to make). At the end, a character dispenses with a loved one's belongings but then cannot bear to part with some of them. Letting go is hard, and love surely does not come easy. And in this summer, when the problem of Goliath may be the thing on most of the villagers' minds (as is the just-finished trial of Casey Anthony in our country), how much more important is the daily grind of simply getting by. And connecting.

“The Films of Nicolás Pereda” is organized by FiGa Films. For the complete schedule, dates and times, click here, and then click further, as instructed by the AFA web designer.

After a seven-week break, the second part of this Mexican initiative continues with the New York theatrical premiere run of Eugenio Polgovsky’s THE INHERITORS, September 9-15. The most highly praised and awarded Mexican documentary in recent years, the film is said to immerse us in the daily lives of children who, with their families, survive only by their unrelenting labor. Hailed as "remarkable... a sometimes harrowing but also poetic and thoughtful film" by Screen Daily, The Inheritors is an austere portrait of children who have inherited tools and techniques from their ancestors, but have alsoinherited their day-to-day hardships and toil. (Distributed by Icarus Films.)

Seeing the summer off, the final portion, from September 16 through the 22 -- GenMex: Recent Films from Mexico, curated by Carlos A. Gutiérrez -- presents works made by some of the outstanding filmmakers of this generation, including Drama/Mex (from which a still is shown above), the debut feature film of Gerardo Naranjo (director of the Cannes’ favorite Miss Bala); Raging Sun Raging Sky (below) by Julián Hernández, described by the New York Press'  Armond White as “Mexico’s finest, yet critically neglected, auteur”; and some lesser-known yet exciting films that have had very limited exposure in the U.S. such as Jonás Cuarón’s Año Uña and Yulene Olaizola’s excellent and shocking Intimidades de Shakespeare y Víctor Hugo, winner of the Best Film award at the Buenos Aires Independent Film Festival (BAFICI).

I'll hope to have more to say about some of these Mexican films as the final two weeks of the program approaches.  For now, to view the complete schedule, dates and times, click here, and then click further, as instructed by the AFA web designer.

The photos above are from the films themselves, except that of 
Senor Pereda, which comes courtesy of Getty Images.