“Rudo y cursi”… Yes, popular comedies still exist

Diego Luna and Gael Garcia Bernal in "Rudo y cursi"

In Paris these days you could see posters of the movie “Rudo y Cursi” (litterally “The rude and the corny”), which is released on the 1st of September. There was written : “The best Mexican comedy of the year”. Well… First of all, there have not been so many Mexican comedies in the recent weeks. The Mexican cinema is quite wealthy but has not producted many comedies unlike what it was a few years/decades ago.

Uruguay in three generations

The invisible mountain, by Carolina de Robertis / Vintage Editions

The first novel of Carolina de Robertis begins as an elliptical fantasy tale. Immigrants arrive by sea and see a mountain on the coast. They found a city and and call it Montevideo (Monte-vid-eo: I see a mountain). Then, a few decades later, at the dawn of the twentieth century in the Uruguayan countryside, an Indian child is found at the top of a tree. She had been missing for weeks, given for dead and his father suspected of being the murderer.

“Chilango Chronicles”, the essence of Mexican surrealism

Juvencio (Patricio Castillo), Claudia (Regina Orozco) and Jairo (Rodrigo Ostap)

This weekend “Chilango Chronicles”, from the movie director Carlos Enderle, is released in Mexico. Beyond the illustration of how difficult it is nowadays for a Mexican movie to be distributed in its own country – it has been shown first in some festivals and US cities – it confirms the wealthy diversity of Mexican cinema.