My encounter with humanities Anonymous

When I first got into film, I was bombarded with the classics, the “must-sees”, the cult films. I remember watching a Clockwork Orange for the first time and wondering how was it possible that I had missed this type of film for so long. The same happened with The Godfather, Oldboy, and many more. They were all foreign masterpieces, but I was beginning to notice that I wasn’t watching any Mexican movies.

I went to the theater one day and bought a ticket for the only Mexican film in the listings. I was very disappointed because I felt it was trying to mock an American film: the characters didn’t even seem Mexican except for the fact that they spoke Spanish. Here, a freelance mariachi musician lived in a very fancy apartment and could afford to send his daughter to private school, and I went home wondering why weren’t they any authentic Mexican films. After some googling, I discovered a film by Alejandro González Iñárritu called Amores perros.

The film is set in a real Mexico City, which is seen as no paradise, but neither as hell. It is just real. I saw a man take his dog to a fight out of necessity while at the same time a woman throws a tantrum over not being a model anymore. A man hitting his wife because “he loved her” while...