review

Güeros

Director: Alonso Ruizpalacios

Writer: Alonso Ruizpalacios & Gibran Portela

Starring: Tenoch Huerta, Sebastian Aguirre & Ilse Salas

Released: 14th March 2016

The pursuit of cult folk singers has proved successful to filmmakers in recent years – as Searching For Sugar Man demonstrated. This black and white debut from Mexican filmmaker Alonso Ruizpalacios follows three teenagers as they attempt to navigate the student strikes in Mexico City in the late Nineties to track down an enigmatic folk singer. “He once made Bob Dylan cry,” we learn.

Untitled

As with last year’s excellent A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night, Ruizpalacios’ film is indebted to the early, monochrome films of Jim Jarmusch. The tone is meandering and free-spirited, drifting through a number of situations and alighting upon characters with a ramshackle charm. But there are serious points made, too. The film’s social commentary plays out discretely in the background, as Ruizpalacios touches on the plight of single parents, the condition of state-run accommodation and the politicisation of student protest.


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