¡Que viva México!

Pancho Reyes is an ordinary man working in the city; when his grandfather dies he returns to the village. The whole family gathers for the funeral and it emerges that there is a mineral deposit under the land. After that everyone devours everyone: brothers, cousins, the priest, the council and the company. The subject is not inheritance but the country itself. The family is constructed as a representation of a nation and each character answers to an institution or a class; the film reduces a century of Mexican politics to a fight over a plot of land. The form is black comedy at a hard pitch: sudden violence, merciless humour, and a running time close to three hours. Luis Estrada had been making films aimed directly at those in power for many years; this one, counted as a continuation of the run that began with Herod's Law, criticised the administration of its own moment with equal severity. The title recalls the project Sergei Eisenstein began in Mexico and never finished. Netflix released it and the argument in Mexico grew after it went out; Estrada has said repeatedly that state-backed funds were closed to the film. Damián Alcázar leads, with Alfonso Herrera and Joaquín Cosío in the cast. Who it is for: viewers who like political satire and Latin American black comedy. Who it is not for: anyone without the local context; most of the jokes point directly at Mexican politics and the film is long.