Violence, Conflict and Discourse in Mexican Cinema (2002-2015) (PDF)

"This is an essential text for anyone interested in how Mexican cinema has represented the social and political crisis that narco-violence, forced disappearances, and necropolitics have shaped in Mexico. Haddu provides important context and astute and clear readings of key films read through the prism of violence and produced during a historical period of unprecedented changes."

--Sergio De La Mora, University of California, Davis, USA

The last two decades have seen dramatic changes to Mexico's socio-political landscape. A former president fleeing into exile, political assassinations, a rebellion in Chiapas, and the eruption of the so-called war on drugs provide key examples of critical events shaping the nation. This book examines Mexican cinema's representations of, and responses to, these socio-political moments. Beginning with the definitive year 1994, the early chapters in this book discuss the presence of guerilla uprisings amidst political upheaval, and how they find screen representation. A key focus of this book is also the so-called narco-war and its effects on Mexican society, read through the prism of selected filmic texts. Focusing on both fiction and documentary filmmaking, notions of violence, victimhood, and the complex processing of grief in the context of enforced disappearances and the narco-conflict are explored in this study. Furthermore, the investigations offer a comparative approach to examining films both made in Mexico and beyond its frontiers, seen in the transnational work of Alfonso Cuarón, Guillermo del Toro, and Alejandro González Iñárritu. The discussions offer an understanding of the imprints left by warfare and trauma upon the collective and individual psyche. Using rigorous theoretical frameworks and succinct filmic analyses, this book will be essential reading for those interested in Mexican and Latin American film, as well as those working in the fields of Cultural, Screen, and Trauma Studies.

Miriam Haddu is Senior Lecturer in the School of Humanities, Royal Holloway, University of London, United Kingdom.