Las razones de la noche: cine mexicano actual

Abstract

The history of Mexican cinematography begins with the arrival of Lumiere's envoys in 1896. The revolution broke in 1910 and Mexican filrn took the images of its caudillos (military leaders) and its battles. Once the armed movement ended, silent movies were filled with imitations of Italian cinema. In 1936 the national movie industry is inaugurated as such, thanks to a formula that had been suggested by the commercial success of the film Aliá en el Rancho Grande. Afterwards, Mexican movies will experience its golden age, in which a great amount of movies were produced. Then, in the sixties, a crisis will arise: during the Presidency of Luis Echeverría, the government, wanting to produce creative and intelligent filrns, ended up supporting low quality projects. From then on, Mexican cinema has passed through a series of ups and downs, incapable of achieving a consistent quality, both in its aesthetic proposals and its production.