Güeros

A film set in Mexico City. Tomás has been sent by his mother. The boy causes trouble and is packed off to his older brother, who is at university in the capital. Except the brother is not studying. There is a strike at the university, classes have stopped, and Sombra and his friend spend their days in an apartment: the electricity is stolen, nobody goes out, and time has stopped. Tomás has brought a cassette with him. It is a recording by Epigmenio Cruz, a musician forgotten years ago; according to his father, this man once moved everybody. The three get into a car and set out to find him. The film turns into a tour of the city. Different neighbourhoods, the university on strike, a radio station, a hospital, and addresses nobody quite knows. What the narrative is interested in is not the search but a generation not knowing what to do: those on strike and those not stand in the same emptiness. The image is black and white and nearly square. The film mocks the cinema it belongs to; in one scene the characters argue about how Mexican art films shoot poor people. Alonso Ruizpalacios wrote and directed; it is his first feature. It won the first-film prize at the Berlin Film Festival. Who it is for: anyone who likes independent Latin American cinema and road films. Who it is not for: anyone expecting a clear resolution; the film deliberately frustrates the expectation around what it is looking for.