Through the Looking Glass

Pedro Infante, Que Cante, Que Cante

Just like Patricio and I are prone to spontaneous bursts of dance, the cat and the car's interior are also often witness to our impulsive bits of song. And the top three melodies, with lyrics we'll sometimes change, would be recognized by almost any Mexican citizen who happened to hear us through an open window. When the skies are overcast and the clouds look heavy, one of us is bound to take on an exaggerated tenor and deliver the prediction that "Parece que va a llover" (It looks like it's going to rain). Or when the mood strikes us, or to better call the other in from a different room, the register runs higher and out comes a vocal shower of "Amorcito corazón" (My little lovey heart). And sometimes, an almost pouty "Pero te quiero más que a mis ojos" (But I love you more than my own eyes) will find its way into the air between us. They're all perfect for our purposes, and they're all cultural references with one thing in common: an icon whose death happened fifty years ago yesterday.

Pedro Infante sang each of those lyrics in movies still so popular that they're played in rotation (along with around 60 others) each weekend on major network television. A toda máquina, the Pepe el Toro trilogy, and Tizoc are the ones we pull our own top three from, but I'd also be telling the truth if I said that Patricio knew about a dozen other Infante songs in their entirety, by heart.

Just say the name "Pedro Infante" to someone here, and lyrics, images and sentimental ties will come to the listener's mind. Everyone has a favorite movie to name, or three, and though some love his memory a great deal more than others, it would be a rare and astonishing thing to find a person who frowned at the invocation. Actor and singer, with a voice that still wields the power of swoon, he's the one person an aunt of ours said would have made her consider acts of adultery. My mother-in-law can go glassy-eyed when she hears him, my father-in-law will belt out "Efigenio El Sombrerudo" at a party with his best imitation. Patricio's daughter, even as a little girl, couldn't have been a more rapt audience when watching his films.

He's something much more than anyone I can think of in American culture; it's a delicious coincidence that his last name literally means "prince." He's like a bigger-than-life soup of Frank Sinatra, Elvis and Robert Redford well-simmered together. And unlike Elvis, whose life also ended too soon, Infante hasn't become an icon of kitch. He's as classic as a Redford, or a Humphrey Bogart, perhaps. But for many, like Elvis, Infante continues to live. He was even said to have moved right here to Nicolás Romero, spending the rest of his days in peace. Our friend, Laura, knew the rumor all to well--she and her father made nothing less than a pilgrimage here when she was a girl, only to find an old man to dash their hopes and disappoint them both.

His lyrics and lines, not to mention his charisma and his rags-to-riches story of fame, continue to maintain thick, solid roots throughout popular Mexican culture, fifty whole years after the ill-fated flight he was piloting in the Yucatán. Only a few years back, supporters of López Obrador claimed that "¡Peje el Toro es inocente!"--a reference to one of Infante's most famous characters, Pepe el Toro, framed for a crime he didn't commit.

And much like Pepe, Infante's record has been washed virtually clean by his fans. His machismo may have been enormous, some illicit connections may have been true, too. But he's become a legend here, and the legendarily good find their faults falling away, far in the background.

And what's left is the stuff of spontaneous, joyful song.

Three to See

Film buffs can be valuable friends. They're the ones who manage to cull through the endless list of titles released, past and present, recommending films off the tops of their heads that you likely won't consider a waste of your two hours' time. And they know directors, those folks whose names we hear much less often than those of the actors who work for them. There are directors out there whose names are certainly worth throwing around, too, whose vision is the reason we continue to love a good night at the movies so much.

I'm not anyone's film buff friend, and before I went to Middlebury, I would have been hard pressed to name more than four or five directors from anywhere in the world, much less a single Mexican director; the task would have been definitively futile. I didn't know a single one, and had perhaps seen a total of Mexican films that I could tick off on the fingers of one hand.

And then Amores Perros was released in the States, and I realized all that would have to change. Alejandro González Iñárritu would become, in my estimation, one of a powerhouse triumvirate of Mexican directors, accompanied in his place of honor by Alfonso Cuarón and Guillermo del Toro. Equally comfortable directing in both Spanish and English, they have the gift of drawing out award-worthy (and often award-winning) performances from the actors who tell their films' stories. And they've all widely released films here in their home country over the last couple of months, all of which merit the applause the directors have received in the past.

Our favorite of the three is del Toro's latest creation, a darkly violent and eerily beautiful fantasy of a tale set in Spain's early post-Civil War era. El Laberinto del Fauno will be released in the U.S. at the end of this month as Pan's Labyrinth, offering a retreat into del Toro's rich imagination and a return to the horror that lies behind the old, archetypal fairy tale. It is a masterpiece of a movie, one of the best we've seen all year.

The films of Iñárritu and Cuarón didn't disappoint, either. Though Iñárritu's Babel-- the third and final film in his portmanteau-style trilogy that includes Amores Perros and 21 Grams--doesn't quite deliver the visceral, leave-you-marked-for-life punch that Amores Perros swung out, the acting is without fault, and the stories it weaves together are both tragically intense and relevant. And Cuarón's adaptation of P.D. Jame's novel of the same title, Children of Men, also set for its U.S. release in a matter of weeks, spares nothing in the way of exploring hypothetical global infertility of the human race. A couple of supporting performances throughout the film serve to make painfully poignant, in all the word's definitions, the value of human contribution.

These three films have also meant a happy contribution from Patricio's wallet into the cash boxes of Cinemex Theaters, and though I wouldn't dare say I'm a film buff kind of friend, I'll volunteer these suggestions in the spirit of an enthusiast's goodwill, and with all the brimming enthusiasm Mexico has the privilege of enjoying on behalf of its excellent film-making minds.

dubbing's double take

i can't read lips. far from it, in fact. sitting in last period, high school band class, across the u-shaped chair arrangement from the clarinet section, my eyebrows would lean in toward each other, mouth puckering up at an angle, as i tried to decipher shelly's silent messages. never giving voice to a single syllable, she was a master at not talking in class, yet planning out an entire afternoon with friends across the room. i somehow managed to get the gist of her acrobatic lip messages, even if it was a slightly exasperated "i'll tell you the rest after class." but i sometimes felt like i'd failed as a friend, unequipped with that mysterious element of complicity: to read a person's lips.

even still, when talking with someone, i like having the privilege of seeing her face. i want to hang on to everything said, spoken or unspoken, and it's hard for me to do that, if all i hear is a voice. i think that's why i don't much talk on the phone. and it turns out, i've found, to be a reason why when watching dubbed movies, my face remembers its old lip-reading position, slightly squinched, in an attempt to better understand.

aside from the fact that an actor with someone else's voice makes suspension of disbelief just a little bit harder--turning their characters into something akin to puppets, a constant reminder that i'm watching the film instead of feeling as if i'm a part of it--watching the actor's lips move one way, but hearing sounds that don't correspond to those movements at all, still throws me for a comprehension loop. it's the other side of lip reading; watching a person's face, trying to ignore the movement of his mouth while a voice not his own says those translated lines in his stead. speaking spanish as a second language, i can say one thing in dubbing's favor: it's fantastic practice in the sphere of auditory comprehension, like an audio-visual obstacle course, usually two hours long.

it's taken some time to find that bright side perspective. with the exception of "shrek," "the simpsons," and kung fu, i disparaged everything dub (and there's a lot of it here) for a long, long time. i was, i admit, a subtitle snob.

and in spite of my new-found educational argument, or the benefits of dubbing for those with failing eyesight or with an age under, say, ten, i still mostly am.

and i also have a new reason why.

the majority of movies in mexican theaters are from that country just north of the border, or from that country's linguistic mother of an island. and these last nine months, the ones we've been to see are rife with regional--or national--accents. i never realized how useful subtitles could be until i saw "brokeback mountain," "hustle & flow," "breakfast on pluto," "match point," "mrs. henderson presents," and even "the da vinci code." though the subtitles were in spanish translation, they sure did pick up the slack where my synapses fell short on the accents of cowboys, southerners, the irish, the british, and the french.

there's something to be said for words on a screen diminishing the aesthetics of the cinematography. but there's also something beautiful in hanging on to every word, spoken or translated at the bottom of the screen. and it means i can let my lip-reading inadequacy continue to slide. my apologies to shelly.

on that note

speaking of the liberty to play whatever music pleases a person, one of my teenage neighbors exercises her right by playing the beatles' "don't let me down" five hundred times a day. i can recognize it by the bass line alone now. i could karaoke it without even slant-glancing at the lyrics on the screen. i'm sure she can, too.

i wonder how much english she speaks and if she understands the words. i wonder if she plays it because she's in love for the first time. maybe its just a simple obsession with the beatles. both scenarios are understandable.

and speaking of that thing called adolescence, i am going to break down and beg you to see a movie that has a lot to do with it: duck season or, as it's originally titled here in mexico, temporada de patos. it wasn't lost on family the funny circumstance of patricio and i going all the way to downtown houston to see a mexican film on the big screen, but it was worth both the trip and the teasing. i've even checked all the big cities on moviefone.com to see if it's still getting screening time, so my dear city friends, take an evening to treat yourself. there are so many good latin films that never get distribution deals in the united states, so i'd like to promote the lucky ones that do manage to find their way into american theaters. i haven't checked london or christchurch, but the movie might migrate overseas soon, too. i imagine it would find more than one comfortable spot to land.

if i or the link above have not yet convinced you, i'll pull my final card: patricio's nickname is pato, so for the love of pato, please go see it.

and if you find yourself in the car or the metro on the way to the angelika, the landmark, the laemmie grande, the magnolia or the pipers alley, with a vague bass line running through your head that makes you think, "yeah, duck season, don't let me down," i can almost guarantee that it won't.

wyoming on my mind

mexico city's international film festival kicked off yesterday with movies on big screens all over the city, so patricio and i got in on some of the action by heading to polanco and paying a few pesos to see a couple of films. wednesdays are two-for-one at all the cinemex theaters, which meant a serendipitous and beautiful bargain. by the end of the evening, our hearts had been broken by brokeback mountain, and our souls had been virtually sucked dry by the portuguese magic mirror. we stuck our tongues out with disappointment at that second choice, but the first more than made up for it. i wasn't surprised to find that the screenplay was based on a story by annie proulx; she is a national treasure of a short story writer. and that, married to the music of gustavo santaolalla, set a foundation for a movie that's worth the time to both see and suffer through. i still feel my chest and throat tighten with sadness when vignettes of the film slide into my mind's eye. but i did discover a surprise bonus in the inexpensive visual trip to the place where i came into the world. riverton is one of the closest towns to lander, where i was born, and seeing the west on a giant screen stole my breath and replaced it with bittersweet nostalgia. in every possible way, the movie made me ache.

in the time between screenings, we decided to take a coffee break, and set out in search of a table and caffeine. neither of us being in the mood to spend a lot of time searching, starbucks ended up fitting the bill. now, until last night, my idea of starbucks was this: a good place to meet up for a warm drink after work, and the best place after barnes & noble to go to the bathroom. predictable, dependable, and ubiquitous.

not so in polanco. the place was a social scene like i've rarely seen, leaving me feeling like i'd been swept through that looking glass into a starbucks of some other reality. high heels, flawless manicures, expensive purses, and lipstick that never seemed to disappear on the rims of coffee cups. there was a maltese dog the size of a grapefruit wrapped in a pink pashmina. there were metrosexuals conducting business meetings. there were also a few super boob jobs.

even the hipsters walked with a supermodel strut.

i hadn't felt more like an adolescent since, well, since i was an adolescent. which means i was aware of how i didn't fit in, was pretty sure i didn't want to anyway, but still felt self-conscious about my t-shirt and jeans i'd worn the day before, and my black flip-flops that i've been sporting around because, sad to say, i have a fungus on my little toe. i was unmoored and confused at my inability to be comfortable with myself, so i can't tell you how happy it made me feel to see one of those uber-eyelinered women with a million dollar coiff picking her nose while she waited to go to the restroom. in short, it was a low moment for me.

but i managed to get over it (mostly), forcing myself back through the looking glass into reality and remembering that we're all woven out of the same material, and are all trying to figure out where we fit in. especially after having seen ang lee's film about our right to be ourselves in the world, whether others like it or not, i felt myself peering over my coffee cup a lot less critically and a good deal less intimidated. i hope i learned my lesson well; we're going back this afternoon.