Nuevo Cine Mexicano & Cinco De Mayo

Cinco de Mayo (Fifth of May) seems as good a time as any to bring up the Nuevo Cine Mexicano or New Mexican Cinema. Although, there are parallels that can justify this cinematic celebration in observation of Cinco de Mayo. The holiday is an Americanized observation of a military victory in Mexico's history.

The Nuevo Cine Mexicano is a generation of Mexican filmmakers who garnered a movement largely observed in U.S. culture. Like Cinco de Mayo, it is a movement that gained steam on American tracks and while successful in Mexico, rallied international acclaim, especially in the U.S.

Nuevo Cine Mexicano consists of emotionally charged films, stylistic cinematography and editing, as well as gritty depictions of both reality and fantasy. Movies such as "Like Water for Chocolate" from legendary director Alfonso Arau put a new era of Mexican filmmaking on the radar. Like Arau's landmark film, Antonio Serrano's debut film "Sexo, pudor y lagrimas" ("Sex, Shame & Tears) was adapted from novels and plays.

A truly original triad of fresh voices in the Nuevo Cine Mexicano arose in the films of Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Alfonso Cuaron and Guillermo del Toro. They've all received nominations and awards from International Film Festivals and Academy Awards in Mexico, America, Spain and Britain.

An important figure in the Nuevo Cine Mexicano is cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki, or Chivo. Along with Guillermo del Toro and Alfonso Cuaron, Lubezki worked on the Mexican T.V. series "La Horo Marcada," which was a "Twilight Zone" styled anthology. It featured formative thematic explorations in horror and sci-fi for these filmmakers.

Lubezki also worked with Arau in 1992 on "Like Water for Chocolate" and collaborated on 5 films with Alfonso Cuaron. His collaborations with Cuaron include acclaimed films like "Y tu mama tambien" and "Children of Men." Lubezki has also been cinematographer for a number of great directors such as Mike Nichols, Tim Burton, Michael Mann, The Coen Brothers and Terrence Malick.

Rodrigo Prieto is another important Mexican cinematographer largely responsible for the look of the Nuevo Cine Mexicano. Prieto has worked on acclaimed films with Julie Taymor, Spike Lee, Ang Lee and Oliver Stone. Yet, it is Prieto's collaboration on all 4 of Alejandro In¡rritu's feature films that define his work within the Nuevo Cine Mexicano.

These 4 films include In¡rritu's Death trilogy of films; "Amores perros," (which introduced Gael Garc­ia Bernal to international acclaim) "21 Grams" and "Babel." Their 4th collaboration of equal brilliance and acclaim was his latest starring Javier Bardem, "Biutiful." Inarritu's films share a haunting, yet subtle similarity to films like "Children of Men" from Alfonso Cuaron and "Pan's Labyrinth" from Guillermo del Toro.

These definitive films of the Nuevo Cine Mexicano reawaken something inherent to celebrating Cinco de Mayo. Ideas of freedom and liberation, both personal and political set against a David & Goliath measure of odds. Their characters have the odds stacked against them, but triumph or emerge in unusual ways to a liberation or sorts, no matter how tortured the path.

This insistent theme resides in the essence of Cinco de Mayo, where a small Mexican army in Puebla in 1862 was victorious against all odds. A large invading French force expected to swallow Mexico in their Imperial ambitions, but this small army defended their homeland with the heart of an entire nation. Look deeply into the Nuevo Cine Mexicano and you will see this same heart pulsating in the beat of every frame per second.