Mexican Talent

Last year, Alfonso Cuarón won the Oscar thanks to “Gravity.” This year, another Mexican, Alejandro González Iñárritu, has become the real winner of the latest Oscars ceremony. They both are Mexican; however, their movies have nothing to do with the clichés linked to their country. The Mexican industry has not won either, since these movies have been produced and filmed with actors and crew from different nationalities. Yet both Cuarón and González Iñárritu recognize themselves as Mexicans and, to this effect, they showed gratitude for their awards. Theirs is a story about creativity and talent, as it is for many other Mexican filmmakers such as Guillermo del Toro. It is a story about perseverance too: Opportunity comes knocking time and time again.

They do not make movies to claim concrete hallmarks nor to articulate a message typical of a country that proves its point: They just tell stories, they do it well, and that is why they manage to move people who come from different parts of the world. Just like many other professionals who have succeeded in the mecca of the movies, they know the secrets of their job and they try to go beyond. “Gravity” stood out thanks to its technical execution. With “Birdman,” González Iñárritu has explored the complexities of the sequence shot to provide a story about a man who fights to reinvent himself with a strange unity.

In order to understand what is happening, it might be good to notice Emmanuel Lubezki, a Mexican cinematographer who won an Oscar for “Gravity” last year and has won another one for “Birdman” this year. Also, we could note the two Argentines who assisted in scripting this movie. We could even talk about another Mexican who was nominated for Best Sound Editing but did not win. They all grew up speaking Spanish, they were trained in the south of the United States, and then they relocated to the core of the film industry, where they have fought for years to get their own place on Olympus. They have succeeded. Most of them are friends, so they know how to promote each other’s work. There is also an important point: Hollywood has always known how to recognize talent to show it to the whole world. This time, talent has a Mexican accent.