This movie seems to be heavily influenced by Fellini (8 1/2, La Dolce Vita, Giulietta degli Spiriti) and Bergman (Wild Strawberries, Winter Light, The Silence), Bob Fosse (All That Jazz), Orson Welles (Citizen Kane). It's virtually a pastiche. Parts of it were interesting (even though I'd seen them before in better films), but it meanders a great deal and has some boring patches. The story is pretty mundane: a maverick film-maker prepares to receive an award and reminisces about how he got where he is. A newborn son died about 20 years earlier after living only 30 hours, but the filmmaker and his wife are still grieving. That's a subplot that has nothing to do with the rest of the film. The filmmaker does a lot of thinking about what it means to be a Mexican. He has chosen to live in the U. S. but still has Mexican identity, which he is very defensive about. Not a lot really happens, although there are some spectacular images with a lot of fancy camera work and CGI. I think young people who have never seen any of the films it copies will be impressed, but those who have a good background in film history will find it imitative. The scenes that interested me most were the ones of the hordes of migrants headed toward the US to enter illegally. The visual elements of the film are impressive, but superfluous. Take away the gimmicks and there's not much there.
