Güeros

First of all, there is a simple question to ask yourself in order to find out if you're likely to enjoy this movie: have you seen and enjoyed films like P.T. Anderson's "Inherent Vice" and "Punch-Drunk Love"; or the Coens' "A Serious Man" and "Inside Llewyn Davis"; or even that other work in the oddly specific Mexican cinema genre of "Mexico City's disenchanted youth living in unidades habitacionales (low-income housing complexes, similar to the British council estates or the U.S. projects), going from action to action without much ambition, peppered with existential and black humor and shot in black and white" that is "Temporada de Patos" ("Duck Season")? If so, boy are you gonna love this one!

"Güeros"'s title referring to white people might make one think that this is a politically-charged deconstruction of racism and classism in Mexico, but much like the film makes a point of saying how difficult it is to define who IS a "güero" in Mexico, it also makes a point of saying how difficult it is to define pretty much ANYTHING in this culture. Politics and society unquestionably play a role in the film, but more as a backdrop (an inescapable one if you happen to live here) than as a main subject. Overall, the film is content in hopping from place to place and short mission to short mission, only offering glimpses of the reality it is set in, in order to make its grandest statement that is about, well... nothing.

Much like most of the films mentioned at the start, "Güeros" is existentialist at its core, the aimlessness and lack of a point IS the point. Unlike other pointless films however, "Güeros" is rarely boring. The chemistry between the main characters, the tiny mysteries woven into their world, the gorgeously simplistic imagery, the unexpected twists (including some weird meta references and even an instance of the fourth wall being broken) and, most of all, the amazingly witty dialogue ("Güeros" is FAR more, and more universally, funny than the vast majority of Mexican films that have the gall to call themselves "comedies") make the experience of watching this film more enjoyable and more likely to stay with you than most other films of its kind.