38 National Cineteca Forum: "Strange but true"

Violence has always accompanied Mexico. Perhaps the war on drug trafficking is at the center of the media in the province, however, the city is tinged with red every day, especially at the margins and in the so-called "popular" settlements. It seems that we live in a country where crime struggles to find punishment, where we can only endure, lift and continue. We live in a country without answers

This is the central theme of Strange But True (2017), the new film by Mexican director Michel Lipkes ( Malaventura ). The film follows a pair of young pepenadores, Yesi (Itzel Sarmiento) and Jonathan (Kristyan Ferrer), who spend their days hanging a garbage truck under the orders of the Clean Master (Luis Enrique Parra) and the watchful eye of the Mummy ( Alfredo Blanco) They try to take advantage of their romantic relationship between social marginalization and the threats of their environment (the Master has set his lascivious gaze on Yesi). The reality is an unchangeable plate

The work of Lipkes follows the extensive current of Mexican cinema that seeks to confront the harshness of life in the lower layers of our society. A sordid world, wild and without, apparent, future (in this case, filmed in a black and white stylized because, in the words of the filmmaker, he did not want to transform violence into exploitation)

[19659003 Strange But True Tends Bridges With Bands Like The Forgotten (1950) And The Mexican Black Film In General (19459006) Victims Of Sin A Corner Close from the sky Vagabunda ), including a sequence on the iconic bridge of Nonoalco -curiously the reality, came back to win the game to the cinema as they demonstrate to recent events. Also, as in Buñuel's classic, Lipkes gives himself time to insert small symbols in the middle of harshness: a tramp buries a baby or that snake that crosses the screen through the trash. There is a VHS of Gummo (1997), so it is clear that the type of cinema that Lipkes seeks.

The film shows us the cul-de-sac in which the days of a large number of Mexicans, it is a study of the human condition with few answers because the world does not. has not either. "Pedro," El Jaibo "and his companions reveal to us the ultimate nature of man, which can consist of a permanent and constant orphanage," wrote Octavio Paz in 1951 about the protagonists of Los Olvidados, a few lines that are still valid and "Anyway, he'll fuck us," says Yesi when Jonathan assures him that Master would not dare to rape her sexually, it's a phrase that encompasses everything, her future doomed to the same thing. . It's impossible to leave this city where, in fact, everything is happening and nothing ever happens.

This is our Mexico.

You can review the entire program of the 38th National Cinema Forum of the National Cinematheque