Hola México Film Festival exhibits real and imaginary horrors without leaving aside the laughs

Between Oct. 2 and 10 — and, as soon as once more, in individual — the Hola México Movie Competition returns to Los Angeles. The occasion prides itself on being the biggest exterior Aztec lands devoted solely to the cinema of the US’ southern neighbor.

This 14th version of the pageant will current an official program of characteristic movies, both Mexican productions or co-productions subtitled in English. That target one nation’s output distinguishes Hola from the Los Angeles Latino Movie Competition (LALIFF) and the El GuadaLAjara Movie Competition (GLAFF).

However although all of the choices in Hola México originate from the identical nation, pageant founder and director Samuel Douek gives a lineup that’s extensively various when it comes to themes, genres and the genders and worldviews of the filmmakers. Douek’s alternative for his pageant’s Sunday opening, “Lecciones para canallas” (whose English translation is “Classes for Scoundrels”) illustrates that mission.

The comedy arouses curiosity because of the starring function it offers to Joaquín Cosío, who, along with being extensively recognized for performances in fashionable Mexican movies reminiscent of “Matando Cabos” and “El Infierno,” has grow to be acquainted to U.S. audiences for his roles in high-profile Hollywood productions just like the James Bond film “Quantum of Solace” and “The Suicide Squad,” in addition to within the acclaimed Netflix collection “Narcos: México.”

A persuasively naturalistic actor with a powerful persona, Cosío in “Lecciones” performs Soiled Barry (an apparent nod to Clint Eastwood’s Soiled Harry), a con artist whose ethical shabbiness is offset by his booming charisma. Within the movie he unexpectedly groups up together with his daughter, Jenny (Danae Reynaud), whom he hasn’t seen since she was a baby, as his would-be associate in crime.

Director and co-writer Gustavo Moheno (“Eddie Reynolds and the Metal Angels”) fashions an entertaining thriller with perverse edges that nonetheless falls quick as a result of its risk-averse screenplay fails to determine true emotional connections among the many characters. Even so, the movie breaks the mildew of inconsequential romantic comedies that abound in Mexico at present. Will probably be screened on Sunday as a part of a gap ceremony that begins at 4:30 p.m. and contains an after-party on the Montalbán Theater.

On the reverse finish of the pageant’s lineup is “El diablo entre las piernas” (“Satan Between the Legs”), the latest characteristic movie (2019) by legendary filmmaker Arturo Ripstein, for whom a class of its personal needs to be created. At 78, the trainer continues to be as irreverent as ever: Though his protagonists are an aged couple (excellently performed by Sylvia Pasquel and Alejandro Suárez), he refuses to melt his proposal — in distinction to what German director Michael Haneke did in his geriatric love fable “Amour” — displaying his characters actively concerned in a poisonous relationship, full with sexual conditions and nude scenes.

Filming in black-and-white, as he has accomplished sometimes all through his profession, Ripstein as soon as once more attracts on a script written by his collaborator and life associate, Paz Alicia Garciadiego, in growing a sordid story spiked with black humor. Some viewers will discover its relentless probing of macho sexuality and feminine submission uncomfortable to look at. Nonetheless, within the midst of their intentional excesses, Ripstein and Garciadiego find yourself attaining a curious steadiness between the characters, sustaining performances as dangerous as they’re spectacular, and in a mise-en-scène whose virtuosity permits us to face a movie that’s each demanding and lengthy (virtually two and a half hours). It would display screen Oct. 6 at 6 p.m. on the Montalbán Theater.

Hola México’s characteristic movie lineup contains two dramas that painting tragedies arising from the chaos generated by drug trafficking and the battle on medicine and that, within the method of “Miss Bala” (2011), “Rosario Tijeras” (2005) and “Maria, Stuffed with Grace” (2004), deal with feminine characters.

In “Manto de gemas” (“Gown of Gems”), director and screenwriter Natalia López Gallardo — a Bolivian based mostly in Mexico for twenty years who’s the spouse and collaborator of famend filmmaker Carlos Reygadas — adopts a gendered perspective towards her story of three girls dwelling in a desolate rural space: rich housewife Isabel (Nailea Norvind); her home employee María (Antonia Olivares); and the police agent Roberta (Aida Roa).

Norvind, famend amongst Latin audiences for her appearances in Eighties and ’90s telenovelas, has participated in a number of fascinating impartial movie tasks lately. Right here, she exhibits histrionic abilities as a mom of two youngsters, lately separated from her husband, who out of the blue turns into obsessive about the seek for her employee’s lacking sister.

María offers with that drama whereas working undercover for a gaggle of drug traffickers, whereas Roberta faces the chance that her teenage son belongs to the identical prison circle, as a part of a maelstrom of crime that López Gallardo handles at occasions with a fairly direct narrative model, however which on different events she renders with allegorical photographs and a creative method that’s not totally accessible.

Be that as it could, the movie stands out not just for its impeccable workmanship and nice performances but additionally for the way in which during which it presents the devastating penalties of the drug wars with out depicting graphic violence. Will probably be screened Oct. 4 at 5:15 p.m. at Regal L.A. Reside.

“La Civil,” by the Belgium-based Romanian writer-director Teodora Mihai, additionally focuses on a housewife separated from her husband. Similar to Isabel, Cielo (brilliantly portrayed by Arcelia Ramírez) places her life in danger to trace the whereabouts of a lacking individual — her teenage daughter, who has been kidnapped by a cartel in northern Mexico.

“La Civil,” directed by Teodora Mihai.

(Hola México Movie Competition)

Nonetheless, in contrast to the character in “Gown of Gems,” who aspires to be a white savior, Cielo is a lady of modest means who takes even better dangers by carefully following the criminals and changing into an informant for the military. Though her adventures ultimately pressure credulity, by her script — impressed by actual occasions — Mihai manages to utterly enmesh the viewer in a narrative that mixes social drama with thriller, espionage and vigilante parts. It by no means flags regardless of its 2½-hour operating time. Will probably be screened Oct. 7 at 6 p.m. on the Montalbán Theatre.

Lastly, Hola México resumes its Nocturne part, devoted to incursions into the improbable, testifying to the advances within the style inside the Mexican trade. That is most clear in “Huesera,” one other female-authored movie, directed by Michelle Garza and written by Abia Castillo, with a feminine main function that resorts to a considerably advanced and never totally new symbolism of motherhood as a type of curse. Although that theme evokes Hollywood movies like “Rosemary’s Child,” Garza’s movie depends on a collection of particular circumstances and novel twists to amass its personal id.

Valeria (magnificently performed by newcomer Natalia Solián) is a younger married lady who has managed to get pregnant after a number of failed makes an attempt and who initially finds herself topic to the dictates of the patriarchy strengthened by the ladies of her family, in keeping with the scope of a Latin American machismo that’s not restricted to or enforced solely by males.

However Valeria is slowly releasing herself from these bonds, even when it comes to sexual id. The flashbacks that present her as an adolescent punk rocker are offset by her present devotion to the Virgin of Guadalupe and her subsequent makes an attempt to free herself of the curse that afflicts her with the assistance of some healers.

Even though that is her debut movie, Garza has loads to do with the wonderful efficiency of the lead actress, and her clear mastery of cinematographic language permits her to shake up viewers with out the necessity to resort to extravagant visible assets. The particular results, backed up by surprising sound bites, by no means stop to amaze. It’s being screened on Oct. 7 at 9.30 p.m. on the Montalbán Theater.

The identical part contains one other movie that instructions consideration, extra for the idea it takes on than for the outcomes it achieves, though these will not be negligible. “Satanic Hispanics” is a type of horror anthology movies which are basically irregular, with a narrator on the middle who tells tales which are disconnected from each other thematically and are united just by belonging to the college of concern.

The technique lets us uncover or rediscover the work of 5 administrators who’re already extraordinarily fashionable amongst staunch horror followers and who will not be all of Aztec origin: Argentines Alejandro Brugués (“Juan of the Useless”) and Demián Rugna (“Terrified”), Mexican American Mike Mendez (“Large Ass Spider!”), Cuban American Eduardo Sánchez (“The Blair Witch Undertaking”) and Mexican Canadian Gigi Saul Guerrero (“Tradition Shock”).

A scene from the horror movie “Huesera”.

(Hola México Movie Competition)

Every filmmaker directs one of many 5 episodes offered, virtually all the time in Spanish and every displaying his or her personal model. Though the alternation between the comedian and the “laborious” elements of the style imply that the entire doesn’t stream collectively utterly, the cultural parts that regularly infiltrate the tales give all the movie a really specific character that overcomes the plain finances limitations. There’s even multiple special-effects nice shock. Wait till you see the creepy illustration of La Santa Muerte, a deity that drug cartels have adopted as their patron “saint.” Will probably be screened Oct. 8 at 9.30 p.m. on the Montalbán Theater.

The 2022 version of the Hola México Movie Competition will embrace greater than 20 characteristic movies and 20 quick movies from the Tomorrow’s Filmmakers At this time program.