Synopsis
Eisenstein shows us Mexico in this movie, its history and its culture. He believes, that Mexico can become a modern state.
1979 ‘Да здравствует Мексика!’ Directed by Sergei Eisenstein
Eisenstein shows us Mexico in this movie, its history and its culture. He believes, that Mexico can become a modern state.
¡Que viva México!, Da zdravstvuyet Meksika!, メキシコ万歳, Niech żyje Meksyk!, ¡Que Viva Mexico!, ¡Qué viva México!, Que Viva Mexico !, Que Viva México, 墨西哥万岁, ¡Que Viva Mexico! - Da Zdravstvuyet Meksika!, Que viva México, Viva Mexico!
The best part is the part they didn't actually film. I would give a lot to see the unfilmed segment of the women soldiers of the Mexican revolution. That sounds like everything I've ever wanted from Eisenstein.
Some kind of surrealist folk painting come to life. Dreamy quietud, with a gauzy terracotta patina. Impressive hats. Plants of great importance. Gods of men.
It's maybe a miracle that this is as good as it is - though firstly at least it's a great example of how fundamental composition is to Eisenstein's form, as much as montage is fundamental to it. But what's missing is the key - the interplay between composition and the cut, and Eisenstein without montage feels like there is something missing. Indeed, upon returning Russia many assumed Eisenstein was institutionalized as a form of penalization for having spent such a long time in North America, but it's been revealed since it was because of the deep depression he has spiraled into upon realizing that he would never be able to finish this film properly.
Since we cannot tell what Eisenstein…
SIFF 2015
I Am Cuba, but 30 years earlier and with the revolutionary victory cut off by the interests of American capital, which sounds about right.
Courtship among the cacti; a matador's dance; struggle and defeat; the dead among the living. Even if it's far from plain ethnographic study, this is very much an outsider's view of Mexico, possessed by an exotic, almost mythic quality (complemented by the mythic nature of the project itself - the pitch, Eisenstein, Aleksandrov and Tisse's journey, the troubled production, followed by the loss and eventual reacquisition of the footage). Being Eisenstein, all of it is rooted in an admiration for the workers, the real Mexico, and the structure of a) travelogue --> b) narrative serves as its own kind of dialectical statement (the final, missing section being revolution of course).
This restoration, bookended by extremely charming appearances from Aleksandrov, intends…
Perhaps it’s controversial to call this my favorite Eisenstein given that he didn’t complete it, but there’s a relaxed feel to this that is absent in much of his work which comes from his reverence for Mexican culture and gentle touch in examining its geopolitics.
The final scene is among the most poetic and hopeful in all of cinema; in which the rich are unmasked and revealed as a dead artifact of the past, with the future instead resting on the shoulders of the workers — “a soldadera’s son: one of whose hands are destined to forge a truly free Mexico.”
Was shaping up to be one of the greatest films I had ever seen when all of a sudden it decided to have a plot.
Despite being listed as being a 1979 film (which I believe means the assembled footage with introduction) this is an incomplete project from the 1930s, which, after viewing, is hard to imagine not being a genuinely remarkable feature had it been assembled the way Sergei Eisenstein seemed to hope it would be.
Also, was a bit jarring to finally realize where that film footage in Rage Against The Machine's People of the Sun video came from, after all these years.
Eisenstein probably would've cut this better- as it is it's a bit plodding- but the passion, and the ideas, are there. A film about the push and pull between history and culture, the way each shapes the other, and the way a present nation looks back on its scattered, colonized past. A modern Mexican can look at an Aztec temple and say, this is me, this is my culture, but they can look at an image of Christ, or a bullfight, and say the same thing. The liberation of a colonized country from its oppressors is not just a liberation of people, but of culture. Ethnographic films are inherently problematic, and there are elements in this to be skeptical of, but Eisenstein's approach is so full of respect and admiration I find it hard to criticize.
𝓢𝓬𝓾𝓶𝓫𝓪𝓵𝓲𝓷𝓪’𝓼 (◕ل͜◕) 𝕰𝖓𝖉 𝖔𝖋 𝕯𝖆y𝖘 𝕾𝖈𝖆𝖛𝖊𝖓𝖌𝖊𝖗 𝕳𝖚𝖓𝖙 ʕ✪ᴥ✪ʔ
22. A documentary in another language
Perfectly composed, haunting images, strung together like a stream of consciousness poem. The structure guides you in a waking dream, allowing you to experience this country that only partially existed in reality.
Grigori Alexandrov did the world a favor when he took on this project. He had more right than anyone to try and recreate Eisentein's vision, and he lends the work a real nostalgia. I prefer his well-written voiceovers to intertitles, but I’d rather the footage been allowed to speak for itself. I’ve added the 1998 Mexican Fantasy to my watchlist, but it’s hard to imagine anyone improving on Alexandrov’s use of the footage.
A…
A documentary style film of Mexico started by Sergei M. Eisenstein in 1931, but for various reasons not completed, and edited using Eisenstein's old scripts, until nearly 50 years later. After his death. So a little confusing if one should classify this as a early 1930s work or as a 1979 production. But the finished 1979 product has a intro explaining some of the difficulties and a epilogue which talks about things they had planed before they ran out of money.
And it's Eisenstein's take on Mexico with lustrous naked women, ruthless battles in the bullring and bandits killing each other with guns and horses stomping on buried victims' heads! Quite a lot of stunning images, but how close this is to what Eisenstein had imagined for his finished product is unknown. It's rather inconsistent wannabe documentary, but you can still see an respected artist at work.