Mexican Screen Fiction 

by Paul Julian Smith

(Polity Press, £17.99)

MODERN Mexico is a troubled place not just in terms of the corruption and violence that pervade its society but also in terms of its film industry. 

This is the impression one gets from Paul Julian Smith’s assessment of the country’s screen fiction from over the past decade. 

According to Smith, the Mexican people are fearful of their society’s growing corruption and a pessimistic view of their local film production by both audiences and industry has emerged in parallel. 

Despite a glut in funding and production box office receipts are low as local films fail to connect with Mexican audiences and are often marginalised by Hollywood biased exhibitors.

Perhaps Mexico’s lack of interest in its own cinema is why Smith has decided to dedicate half his criticism to its critically shunned sibling: television. 

Smith is clearly opposed to the critical snobbery directed at popular TV and it’s evident that he finds Mexico’s television more useful to his analysis than its struggling film industry. 

The apparently banal but hugely popular telenovelas which dominate Mexican airwaves provide a more accurate reflection of local tastes and concerns and allow the author to closely examine the fabric of Mexican society. 

The depiction of gender, sexuality, politics and youth culture in successful shows like Women Murderers and Rebel is considered and often compared favourably with Mexican art-house movies which deal with similar issues. 

Indeed, throughout the book Smith positions himself firmly on the side of the mainstream and commercial not just in the medium of television but also in film. 

The author obviously feels the animosity which Mexico’s artistic establishment directs towards popular genre movies counterproductive. 

Smith uses diverse perspectives to find ideological depth in commercially successful mainstream films like Y Tu Mama Tambien (2001), Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) and Hell (2010). 

The book implies that the future of Mexican cinema may lie in rapidly improving commercial movies like these as well as the aesthetics of populist Mexican television. 

All this is convincing enough. 

Yet the validity of Smith’s argument is weakened by his dispassionate and often frustratingly detached prose. 

More evident enthusiasm for the texts he considers would have helped to motivate the reader and lent his argument more weight and vitality. 

If Smith feels the future of Mexican cinema lies in focusing on popular appeal then why should his writing style feel so devoid of it?

STEVE RICHARDS