Drama/Mex.

"Drama/Mex means to say something about its country of origin, though it's hard to know exactly what," writes Manohla Dargis. "[Director Gerardo] Naranjo may want or need to take the measure of Mexico at its best and at its worst, but first he needs to ditch the narrative and visual clichés, notably the palsied hand-held camerawork, which turn too many movies from too many countries into generic art-house mush."

"Amores Perros is a yappy whelp compared to this striking degrees-of-separation drama," writes Jim Ridley in the Voice. "Like Chano [Emilio Valdés], the movie hums with sexed-up voltage, and it's just as hard, handsome, and shifty."

Updated through 7/13.

For Filmmaker, Nick Dawson talks with Naranjo "about his passion for film, the renaissance in Mexican cinema and why La Jetée makes Werner Herzog miserable." And indieWIRE interviews Naranjo, too.

Earlier: Paul Schrodt at Slant and "Cannes. Drama/Mex."

Update, 7/12: "Gerardo Naranjo's deliriously trashy Drama/Mex may not do much to burnish the international prestige of Mexican cinema, but it's an entertaining blend of obvious influences, from softcore cable-TV porn to Tarantino to Less Than Zero and Leaving Las Vegas," writes Andrew O'Hehir in Salon. "Furthermore, if you've recently been to Acapulco, the one-time jet-set resort city where these interlinked sleaze-fables unfold, you may well accept the outrageousness of Drama/Mex at face value."

Updates, 7/13: "Perhaps the highest praise I can offer Naranjo's film is the fact that it was nearly half over before I realized that I was watching one of those damn fragile-connection triptychs," writes Mike D'Angelo at Nerve. "Title/Stupid, however."

"Executive-produced by New Mexican Cinema heartthrob Gael García Bernal, Drama/Mex is perhaps less groundbreaking than Bernal's landmark vehicles Amores Perros and Y Tu Mama Tambien, but it nonetheless affirms Mexico's continuing role as one of the leading forces in contemporary cinema," writes Cullen Gallagher in the L Magazine.

"[W]hile Iñárritu shoots Guillermo Arriaga's weighty scripts in a self-consciously arty style, Naranjo shoots his own script more loosely, in a performance-driven style reminiscent of the French New Wave, John Cassavetes, and mid-80s American independent film," writes someone at the AV Club (one comment: "My guess: Tobias").

Posted by dwhudson at July 11, 2007 10:04 AM