El espectáculo de la violencia en el cine mexicano del siglo XXI by Guadalupe Pérez-Anzaldo (review)

Guadalupe Pérez-Anzaldo’s El espectáculo de la violencia en el cine mexicano del siglo XXI powerfully analyzes three of the most representative films from recent Mexican cinema: Conejo en la luna (dir. Jorge Ramírez Suárez, Mexico, 2004), a paranoid-filled psycho-thriller; Casi divas (dir. Issa López, Mexico, 2008), a female-empowerment romantic comedy; and El infierno (dir. Luis Estrada, Mexico, 2010), a narco-drug, violence-centered comedy. Before exploring in depth the aforementioned films, the author offers in chapter 1 an overview of violence in Mexican history, including its independence movement, the Mexican revolution, and other upheavals (the Cristero War, Tlatelolco 1968, today’s daily drug-fueled violence, etc.). Pérez-Anzaldo’s thorough research addresses, among many other things, Porfirio Díaz’s devastating violent subjugation of indigenous communities, such as the Yaquis, Mayos, and Mayas. She references John Kenneth Turner’s México bárbaro, and even Díaz’s favorite phrase: “Mátenlos en caliente.” This phrase encapsulates, in my view, one of the major takeaways of this study: that Mexico’s philosophy towards life has been, is and will be crystallized by the José Alfredo Jiménez lyric “la vida no vale nada.”

In chapter 2, “Violencia y censura en el cine mexicano,” Pérez-Anzaldo journeys through the history of censorship of films depicting violence. In my opinion, this chapter should be read in university courses dealing with Mexican cinematic history or popular culture. The research reveals a conscientious collaboration between El Estado and the Mexican filmmaking industry to deliver a certain “cinematic product” to the hungry masses. At times, the product has glorified violent episodes in Mexican history. At others, it has shied away from depicting violent rhetoric for fear of inciting revolutionary ideas. A critic that found similar connections between the Mexican government and the Mexican film industry was Emilio García Riera, long considered one of the preeminent Mexican cinema experts. García Riera’s research found that, on many an occasion, the Mexican government purposely supported certain cinematic genres over others, such as the period in the 1970s when—rather than funding the work of directors and screenwriters whose films could have motivated the masses to question their own government—the Mexican presidency of José López Portillo meddled in the film industry in order to support the sexycomedia films starring (in most cases) Sasha Montenegro, the then mistress of the president (and later, his wife).

Chapter 3, “Teorizaciones: La diversificación de la violencia,” demonstrates the depth and breadth of the author’s research on gender violence. One particular section stood out to me. As Pérez-Anzaldo compares feminicidio statistics, she challenges popular misconceptions. Though Ciudad Juárez has been the focus of much of the violence, the Estado de México—especially under the then governorship of Enrique Peña-Nieto—has far surpassed the numbers of the northern border town. Pérez-Anzaldo presents information that media conglomerates in Mexico—such as Televisa—are and have been in cahoots with the PRI party that was poised to nominate Peña-Nieto for president for the 2012–18 cycle. It is only now that light is being shed on the astonishing increase of women murdered in the Estado de México. The fourth chapter centers on the film Conejo en la luna, and, rather than dealing with gender violence, explores a different yet important representation of violence: magnicide. Pérez-Anzaldo, in her chapter, establishes metatextual connections between Hollywood films, such as The Count of Montecristo (Dir. Kevin Reynolds, USA, 2002) and Enemy of the State (dir. Tony Scott, USA, 1998), and this Mexican film. Ramírez Suárez’s film is masterful because it submerges the viewer into a world where the plot covers ideas like political assassination and familiar contemporary Mexican crisis, yet...