With typical dark vibes set against the spectre of war and fascism, this stop-motion animated take on ‘Pinocchio’ from Del Toro impresses most with its strong writing and characterisations.
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Pinocchio (2022)
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Tag / Mexico
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Box, The (2021)
The Venezuelan director’s sophomore fiction feature is so unrushed and assured that one immediately feels at ease immersing in a solid narrative about mistaken identity and the plight—and fate—of migrant workers in Mexico.
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Blood (2005)
Some may find it tedious, but Escalante’s modest feature debut showcases the cinema of the mundane—it portrays the quiet, unexciting daily life of a couple, and through it, reveals what is psychologically tormenting and unsaid.
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April’s Daughter (2017)
A naïve teenage girl gives birth but her wily mother has other sinister ideas in this well-directed Mexican drama that is not afraid to go down a morally contentious path.
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Robe of Gems (2022)
The formal rigour of its aesthetics and its slow cinema approach are at times haunting, capturing the traces of presence, disappearance and trauma in Mexico’s crime-infested rural areas, though it ultimately feels like an elusive experience without any inkling of a plot to hold on to.
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Heli (2013)
A Mexican family is irreversibly changed when drugs unwittingly enter their lives in this stunningly assured piece of cinema (winner of Best Director at Cannes) that may shock even the most seasoned of viewers.
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El Sicario: Room 164 (2010)
You won’t believe that a documentary centering entirely on a masked man with a notepad in a motel room can be so compelling—and harrowing—as Rosi gives us a shocking exposé on the inner workings of drug cartels in Mexico.
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Robinson Crusoe (1954)
Bunuel’s first film in colour was his closest flirtation with a Hollywood style of filmmaking, effortlessly adapting the famous story of a shipwrecked man who must live solitarily on an unknown island for an unknown number of years.
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Exterminating Angel, The (1962)
Not Bunuel at his finest, but he takes down the upper-classes in the kind of sharp comic absurdity that he is known for.
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Sicario (2015)
Villeneuve’s film builds suspense like a worker laying bricks – slowly but surely, giving us a largely solid Mexican cartel infiltration thriller that packs a strong punch.
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Eternality Tan 