Frontierland (1995)

77 min. on 16 mm. In English, Spanish and Nahuatl, with subtitles in English and Spanish.

Special jury prize, San Antonio Cinefestival

Honorable mention, International Festival of Cinema, Uruguay

Directed by Jesse Lerner and Rubén Ortiz Torres

The title refers not to a location but rather to those spaces where cultures intertwine. As this film demonstrates, mestizaje is not so much a racial category as a state of mind, and it can be found even where nationalists and exoticists from both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border might least expect it: not just in Southern and Baja California, but also in Mexico City, South Carolina, Vancouver’s Chinatown, and the homes of European collectors of Pre-Columbian art. Lerner and Ortiz Torres have fashioned a perfumed nightmare out of the fragments that make up the post-colonial scene: part traditional documentary, part postmodern travelogue, part art film, part music video, part public access agit-prop. Amy more literal description would be a betrayal of the film’s many surprises. Besides homages to Luis Buñuel and Kenneth Anger, watch for the bravura long take that brings together Aztec pyramids and Mexico City’s plaza del Zócalo as part of a bleak landscape populated by nuns, vatos, wrestlers and la migra.

Music: Gabriela Ortiz (with help from Bizet, Esquivel, Carl Stallings, Los Folkloristas, Elvis Presley and others).

Starring: Guillermo Gómez-Peña, Aztlan Underground, Hugo Sánchez, David Vázquez, Cameron Jamie, Sergio Zenteno, Pecatrixis, Atoxxxico y Mictlan.

Reviews:

“Blasphemous and repugnant beaner propaganda.” [“Repugnante propaganda blasfema frijolera.”]

– Gov. Pete Wilson

“Sad wetback fake news"

["Tristes noticias falsas de mojados.”]

– Donald Trump