Mexican elections 2012

I know it may be a little boring to write about trend topics about next year's elections, but it seems like an obligatory subject for me to discuss. 

Source: http://goo.gl/L3VR9

In 2000, the conservative National Action Party (PAN) won the presidential and Lower House election over the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), the party that ruled Mexico for 71 years. The future of Mexico seemed very bright those years: the economy had posted growth rates above 5 percent since the crisis in 1994, and modernity was reaching politics making a transition to a new democracy. However, due to several mismanagements and the evident inability of Fox to successfully negotiate the structural reforms, Mexico’s international stance and enthusiasm for its achievements started to fade.

In a parallel process, the former ruling party embarked on a series of electoral victories in the several Mexican states which some years ago were ruled by the opposition parties: Aguascalientes, Nayarit, Nuevo León, Querétaro, Michoacán, San Luis Potosí, Yucatán and Zacatecas. Also, due to its majority in the Lower House and the popularity of its presidential candidate, the telegenic ex-governor of Mexico, Enrique Peña Nieto, some PRI politicians began to see the path to winning the Mexican presidency as a mere formal process.

In sum, the conservative administrations fell short of Mexicans' expectations and left space for an eventual comeback of the revolutionary party.  But recent developments, like the evident ignorance of Peña Nieto when he was unable to name three influential books in his life and his misogyny shown in declarations about not knowing the prices of basic products because “he was not the lady of the house”, has placed him in a difficult position. 

Also, as the economy has bounced back from one of the worst recessions in the last decades and, despite being well above pre-crisis level, unemployment has fallen in the last months, prospects for the PAN to win the presidency for a third period are increasing. In conjunction with the drop of murder rates in several Mexican cities, among them, Juarez, next year's elections might not be a piece of cake as some PRI politicians had thought.

Three spanish speaking movies: La casa muda, El Camino de las flores and Los ojos de Julia from three different countries

Today I saw two different films. One in the movies, and the other in my computer.

I usually do not like going to the movies, because I consider it very expensive and I cannot do anything else in the movies, but to watch the film, so I have the feeling I am losing precious time. While in my house, it is free, and I can do homework, study English and Korean, reply emails, etc. Those are the main reasons why I do not go that often to the theatre.

However today my mother paid the tickets, and I end up going to Cinepolis. There were different interesting and commercial pictures, which I can easily download anytime. So I chose a movie that was not that common, so my going to the movies would be worth it. I picked "La casa muda" (Silent House).

I do not regret my election, despite the fact of being crappy from almost any angle, because it was something different. It was filmed in Uruguay and is based on real events. The movie was filmed using just one camera and in real time, that is quite an achievement. Although the story and the results of the one-camera-real-time experiment were not that good. In other words, I would say this movie sucked not hard, but sucked anyway. However, I read in some forums that people were claiming Uruguayan film industry was improving because of this picture. Given its low quality and insignificant funding, I find this fact as astonishing.

The plot, if you can call it that way, was about a girl, his father and the owner of a country house. The former two go to the house to repair it, so the it can be rented or sold, I do not know. There are some interesting things revealed at the end and the abnormal events happening in the house (well, the abnormal event that happen in that night).

Second movie. I remember a few months ago, following the explained logic, I picked "El Camino de las Flores" (The Road of Flowers). This was a Mexican product which took place in the Northern state of Baja California (however the actors talked with an obvious Mexico-city accent). The main idea was OK, but there were so many incoherences. This was a normal movie in terms of the filming (many cameras, good sound, different angles, etc.), and I remember there was a strong marketing campaign for this movie, I naively thought "if Mexicans don't do horror movies that often, at least the few ones that come out must be good, see the campaign! It must be good" I was wrong.

This movie totally sucked, and I felt pretty bad because I was expecting something better given the enthusiastically made mock-ups in Cinepolis. It was very predictable, the ending was completely off, and there were many unexplained things. I wish I could say something better about this movie, but I cannot.

Third movie. After coming back from the theatre, I searched information about Silent House, and I ran into "Los Ojos de Julia" (Julia's eyes) in a forum. A Spanish movie from the directors of the Orfanato (Foster House?), I decided to watch it. This was a very good movie. I am not saying OMG this THE movie, but it was pretty good, specially when compared to the other two. The story was fine, maybe a little predictable in the last quarter of the movie, the acting was amazing and the overall quality of the movie (don't know the word, maybe the image or fotography) was on pair with US American movies.

After watching these three films, all Spanish speaking ones, I wondered why countries which do not produce horror movies that often, or which do not have a big film industry (Mexico and Uruguay) come up with these sucky movies. In the case of Uruguay, I guessed the director did not have much funds, but if you are going to film something so bad, better not to film anything. In the case of Mexico, this was not the first recent horror movie, KM31 was not amazing, but was way better than El Camino de las Flores.

So if the film industry does not have much funding or official support, why are they still making pretty bad movies? It is supposed to be the contrary, when there are not so many opportunities around, you are supposed to be the best and do the best so you can guarantee future funding. Maybe the special effects will not be that great, and the acting, not the best given the financial restrictions, but the story can and must be good and interesting. Mexico is full of superstitious people and crazy legends, you can get good stories if you look for them.

The Spaniards have been doing great (or OK) horror or suspense movies: Thesis, REC, Foster House/el Orfanato, Backbone's Devil/El Espinazo del Diablo, which is also a coproduction with Mexico, and now Julia's Eyes. Like the director of The Foster House, if you make interesting and good movies, then you will get more funds for the next one.

I praise that Mexicans (I cannot talk about Uruguay since Silent House should not be even considered a professional movie) are making incursions in different genres, instead of sticking to the boring and predictable romance movie, but if you are going to use scarce resources, then do something good!