Arnulfo Rubio smuggles weapons for a Mexican cartel. Federal agent Harris attempts to apprehend him but gets kidnapped by Rubio, instead. During their 600-mile journey, Rubio and Harris become friends. 

In a long opening shot, where teenager confidently enters a gun shop and exits in a panic, Gabriel Ripstein establishes the first chapter in Rubio’s journey. The sequence of the opening is used to demonstrate the logic of the journey that the protagonist starts: first with confidence, and then when his expectations of life as a teenager clash with reality. Friendship is developed between Harris and Rubio, which can be used to reflect between Mexico and its northern neighbours.

In the desert, workers and engineers build a railway road in difficult conditions. Things get complicated when the son of the site’s leader arrives at the scene trying to reach out to his father again.

Taking place in a harsh geographical location, the film opens with snakes and scorpions roaming the sand, asserting the desert, described by characters as sleeping tiger, as one of the film’s most important characters. Desert is used to expose the characters’ nature, which may not appear in normal conditions. Director also tackles the ethnic and social class conflicts that exist in Mexico through influential human stories.

David is a nurse for patients with chronic diseases. Devoted, he develops intimate relationships with them. Outside work, David seems reticent and weird, demonstrating his need for the patients as much as they need him.

The film introduces us to visually protagonist’s depths without using dialogue, by showing a contradiction between the cold, blue-lipped still shots with his patients and other repeated scenes where he runs alone like a suppressed scream. This visual contradiction between calm and anger, as well as the quiet gestures of Tim Roth as well as his turbulent movement while running, are the key to realize the character’s “chronic” struggle, similar to his patients.

Mohammed Tarek

Francisco, a rich and strict bachelor, pursues Gloria to marry him. He seems like a dedicated husband, but passion starts to exhibit disturbing traits as he doubts his wife increase when she complains to their acquaintances.

In a scene in a church tower, Buñuel shows the paranoia-infected Francisco accompanied by his wife. The scene reflects the anxiety that captures his heart, much like the famous tower scene in Hitchcock’s “Vertigo”. Although the visual style of both films is different, we can find a common link between Francisco and Detective Scottie. Both have strange hallucinations that are related to a woman, far from logic, but with a Freudian approach.

Mohammed Tarek

After leaving prison and starting his new life as a banker, Javier (Tarzan) is confronted with a corrupt officer who blackmails and force him to commit crimes.

In this noir film, the director uses dense shadows and narrow locations to depict the prison where Tarzan is trapped in, whether during the time he actually spent in detention or in the broader psychological prison he cannot afford to escape. Ripstein questions the ideas of justice and the second chances, by choosing the nickname Tarzan for his protagonist to indicate the modern life that this primitive person cannot deal with.

Mohammed Tarek

Johan and his family are members of the Mennonites conservative group in Mexico. He falls in love with a woman other than his wife, defying all religious and societal customs.

Reygadas creates a cinematic world, by choosing amateur Mennonites actors who have German accent but live in northern Mexico! All this peculiarity paves way for the logic the film, which, if set in the real world, might have shamed its protagonist. Johan tells his beloved that “peace is stronger than love,” but Reygadas sees love as spiritual energy capable of transmitting miracles that makes love a path leading to peace and not a substitute for it.

Mohammed Tarek

An irreverent essay, unified only by the author’s unique voice, full of surreal moments and provocative scenarios related to intellectual debates about the Mexican national character.

In the 1930s, Sergei Eisenstein made a film about Mexico, showing the spirit of the country by depicting authentic Mexican faces and its rich culture. Rubén Gámez shows these images again, using Eisenstein’s style, with surreal glimpses, showing the contrast between the authentic portraits a country of sharp faces, and images of modernity invading Mexico such Coca-Cola and European fashion. Through this paradox, what it means to be Mexican?

Mohammed Tarek

After Melquiades gets killed and buried twice, Pete, a rancher, kidnaps a Border officer and forces him to extract the body, embarking an exotic journey on horses to Mexico.

Classic Western films portrayed Mexicans as barbaric thieves against cowboys, civilization representatives. But in a Western written by a Mexican, the relationship between the genre’s two foes differs. The police is neutral, the cowboy strives to fulfil the pledge he made to his Mexican friend. Challenging the norms of Western films, writer Guillermo Arriaga, accompanied by Tommy Lee Jones, question the meaning of the law, justice and true civilization.

Mohammed Tarek