Güeros · reception & legacy
2014 · Alonso Ruizpalacios
How Güeros has been received, argued over, and remembered.
The arc
It arrived already garlanded — Best First Feature at the 2014 Berlinale, then a sweep of Mexico's Ariel Awards including Best Picture — and its stock has only risen since, as each new Ruizpalacios film (Museo, A Cop Movie, La Cocina) sends people back to the debut that started it all.
What's debated
The perennial back-and-forth: is it too indebted to Godard and the Nouvelle Vague, or does its self-mocking awareness of exactly that critique make the pastiche the point?
Its footprint
Its most beloved gag is a singer we're told 'once made Bob Dylan cry' — whose music the film pointedly never lets us hear — and it famously has a character rant about Mexican directors making black-and-white festival films, inside a black-and-white festival film.
Where it stands
A fixture of 'essential contemporary Mexican cinema' lists and a Letterboxd word-of-mouth favourite — the standard 'start here' answer for the new generation of Mexican filmmakers.