CoMo No. 30: Mexico (December, 2024)

[movie tickets forger]

it's my first film by Pereda. he has several films on dafilms and i intended to watch at least 2-3 for CoMo. i will hardly make it (it's getting too late) but i am not discouraged by this first viewing and will try some more (in some indefinite future).

[movie tickets forger]

XC Retrospective, Part. 4

Soul Mates (Ximena Cuevas, 1999, 2m) #CoMoMexico

The innocence of creating a mirror, only to repeatedly crush it underfoot.

Devil in the Flesh (Ximena Cuevas, 1998, 5m) #CoMoMexico

“In Devil in the Flesh, I look at myself in the mirror, but through the desolate hole of a mask, the circle is broken by the sharp biting angle of a telephone that keeps ringing. I take up the spoon again. There is no form of escape from everyday boredom. Every grammatical punctuation constitutes a search for a break in reality or an intensified state.” (Ximena Cuevas)

Kansas Avenue (Ximena Cuevas, 1999, 2m) #CoMoMexico

Dorothy doesn't reach her dream of the Emerald City.



Rather, she will have already been over the rainbow by the time she arrives at the worst corner in Kansas.

Help! (Ximena Cuevas, 1999, 2m) #CoMoMexico

As sad as it can be to be trapped in a TV show, singing words you don't even know the meaning of.

Parrot’s Saliva (Ximena Cuevas, 1999, 2m) #CoMoMexico

A soft-focus close-up of mouth and lips is set to the sounds of lovemaking. A soft-porn video on how easy it is to get porn.

Paper Bodies (Ximena Cuevas, 1997, 4m) #CoMoMexico

Cuerpos de Papel is a dense visual meditation on sexuality, loss, jealousy, and intimacy. It uses rich sensual images to weave a digital portrait of an intimate, erotic, and emotional past. As the images transform, we are left with a slippery sense of intangibility and delicacy.

Staying Alive (Ximena Cuevas, 2001, 3m) #CoMoMexico

It can be so bad to be alone that even an artificial heat is better than none.

Raffle (Ximena Cuevas, 2001, 8m) #CoMoMexico

Take back the airwaves: Mexico’s video art doyenne Ximena Cuevas books herself onto the tabloid talk show Tombola (Raffle), toying at first with whimsical deconstruction until she turns the whole affair on its head by seizing the televisual flow itself.

[movie tickets forger]

Maya (Téo Hernandez, 1979) #CoMoMexico

There are two levels of the Maya of this world.

The first is the Maya of the world of nature, which holds a wealth of beauty and grace behind the appearances of the various landscapes that we take for granted — the magic of the mountains, rivers, ocean, sky, and stars.

The second and more difficult level of Maya is the Maya of the human world which contains various hidden influences, control mechanisms, and power games behind the social, economic, political, intellectual, religious, and spiritual influences that make up our social order.

unfortunately, films like these can put a spell on a viewer within a few minutes, and thus, if they proceed over half an hour, one can develop a resistance to its spell and start (alongside) to weave conspiracy theories about the excessive length of it.

not to speak that just to grab these 3 stills ↓↓↓ i had to pause the film at least 300 times (it goes so fast that it can drive any collectionneur d'images crazy).

[movie tickets forger]

a few more shorts are still remaining on my watchlist...

a fleeting glimpse into the early days of Mexican videoart.

Born in Mexico City in 1947, Pola Weiss studied journalism and mass communication at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, graduating in 1975. During this period she began producing programs for public and commercial television. She quickly developed an interest in the artistic possibilities of video technology and, in 1977, produced her first work, Flor cósmica (Cosmic flower), which was exhibited at the 9th Encuentro Internacional de Videoarte at the Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil in Mexico City. In 1978 her Ciudad Mujer Ciudad (City woman city) was included in the inter-national exhibition Salón 77/78: Nuevas tendencias at the Museo de Arte Moderno in Mexico City. Much of Weiss's work consisted of unflinching examinations of the body, identity, and femininity.

Weiss was also deeply invested in exploring the creative and communicative potential of video, as exemplified by her neologisms "arTV" and "teleasta" (the latter a play on the word cineaste). She experimented with the formal qualities of this technology—delving into a psychedelic aesthetic, particularly through chromatic manipulation—while insisting on the promise video harbored to democratize the reception of art. Weiss was also a trailblazer for her development of the concept of videodanza: strapping the camera to her body, she singularly integrated video, performance, and dance.

Although today Weiss is widely credited as the pioneer of video art in Mexico, during her lifetime she enjoyed very little exposure or recognition in her country.

Cosmic Flower (Pola Weiss, 1977, 15m) #CoMoMexico

Pola Weiss’ first videoart.
Abstract, psychedelic visuals with Chic Corea soundtrack.

City Woman City (Pola Weiss, 1978, 18m) #CoMoMexico

A visual poem about the relation between a woman and a city.
In this expressionistic piece of work, emotional interplays are coloured with synthetic video.

[movie tickets forger]

Mexico (Silvianna Goldsmith, 1975, 11m) #CoMoMexico

Mexico revisited, seen in short takes, from the point of view of the women.

Mexico (Steve Sanguedolce, Mike Hoolboom, 1992, 35m) #CoMoMexico

In Mexico, first prize winner at the Oberhausen Short Film Festival in 1993, we are taken to Mexico City and back to Toronto in a timeless, beautifully filmed and paced journey through the 'New World Order’ with images of bullfights, dinosaur graveyards, aquariums, tourists climbing the Aztec Pyramids and the belching smoke of a North American factory polluting the Mexican jungle.