Post by The Candyman on Sept 24, 2005 23:42:25 GMT -5
Quote: "All I wanted was to be a mariachi, like my ancestors. But the city I thought would bring me luck brought only a curse."
Starring: Carlos Gallardo, Consuelo Gómez, Reinol Martinez, Peter Marquardt
Director: Robert Rodriguez
Rating: R
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Robert Rodriguez wasn’t always a Hollywood big shot. Before the Spy Kids movies, before Sin City, before its bigger-budget sequels, he produced a small, low-budget film for $7,000. Its name: El Mariachi. His goal: gain experience, and have it distributed by the Spanish straight-to-video market in order to make enough profit to direct more movies.
What he ended up doing was revolutionizing how movies were made.
In 1992, El Mariachi ended up going on to be distributed by Miramax into theaters, and winning the Audience Award at Sundance. Rodriguez went from being a young, Mexican filmmaker without much professional experience to being thrust into the glamour and money-making machine that is Hollywood.
What’s so significant about El Mariachi? It showed that good, high-quality movies could be made on a low budget. It became a frontrunner in the independent film revolution that has continued to grow, and changed how movies today are made.
It’s hard to review a movie that so greatly contributed to the evolution of cinema. On the one hand, it’s a strong example of how money isn’t necessary to make movies. On the other hand…it doesn’t seem as “professional” today as it did more than ten years ago.
The plot of El Mariachi is fairly simple: a young mariachi comes into a small Mexican town looking for work. Meanwhile, a local drug lord named Moco tries unsuccessfully to kill a guy named Azul who wants the money he’s owed from a previous deal. Azul is out for revenge, and Moco’s still trying too get rid of him. The problem: Azul dresses in black and carries a guitar case full of weapons. The next thing you know, our mariachi is mistaken for Azul, and forced to fend for his life against Moco’s thugs.
It’s a simple story about a case mistaken identity. Nothing new.
The movie’s main strength lies in the directing. Not only did Rodriguez manage to direct an action movie for only a few thousand dollars, but it looks good. Even here we can see the beginnings of Rodriguez’s focus on intriguing visuals. The shots are well thought-out, the color palette works well, and the simple lighting (which consisted entirely of two cheap lights you can get at any hardware store) gets the job done. Simple techniques such as speeding up or slowing down the action are pulled off to maximum effect, whether it be to increase the tension or as a form of comic relief.
Unfortunately, the movie does have some significant flaws. However, that’s to be expected with a budget of $7,000. The acting is one element that suffers as a result of low financing – none of the actors had any professional experience. Keeping this in mind, Carlos Gallardo does an excellent job in the titular role; the audience gets a clear sense of his longing to be a good musician, and his confusion at suddenly being shot at for no good reason. Unfortunately, the other actors don’t hold up quite as well. Consuelo Gómez gives a merely tolerable performance as El Mariachi’s love interest. Reinol Martinez is probably the weakest of the main actors – his handling of Azul’s dialogue hardly makes him seem like a threatening character. He’s even worse than Peter Marquardt, whose broken Spanish hardly inspires a sense of fear from the audience – for the main villain, he doesn’t seem very imposing or dangerous.
Rodriguez’s shooting style was extremely fast and efficient; most of the time, only a single take was done of each shot in order to save film. As Rodriguez explains it, this forced him to work creatively around problems that would ordinarily just be solved by throwing money at them. He edited the movie in his head as he went along – he would shoot each actor saying their lines once, zooming in and out between sentences, so he could then simply cut between characters and make it look like more than one camera was used. That’s fine if you need to save money, but it makes for some very hectic editing at times. There are moments in the movie where the camera cuts back and forth so fast you hardly have time to absorb each shot. If you take into account that it’s a low-budget movie, that’s fine, but as a movie in general that makes for a very disjointed atmosphere. Luckily, the editing is fine most of the time – this problem only arises in certain scenes.
El Mariachi is an action movie. Unfortunately, by today’s standards, the action isn’t great. The action that is present is done well enough; unfortunately, there’s not enough of it. As a result, the pacing suffers from being too slow at times. We’re presented with some well-shot and creative shootouts, but they’re over far too quickly. It’s rated R for violence, but parents shouldn’t worry too much; it’s pretty tame by today’s standards, despite the fact that it can be pretty bloody at times.
Overall, El Mariachi is a pretty good movie. It’s a simple story with a lot of heart, and a prime example of what one can accomplish with little or no budget. It ends on a cliffhanger that isn’t abrupt or startling, but presented in such a way that you want to see what happens to El Mariachi. Good thing there are sequels. This first installment of what Rodriguez calls the “Mariachi Trilogy” isn’t a masterpiece when compared to movies in general, but it’s a landmark of independent film and worth renting. Yes, there are flaws, but for a director could do a lot worse for a debut film, let alone one made for only $7,000. I give it a 6.5/10.
The Bottom Line: A stunning achievement when you take its budget into account. A fair movie even when you don’t.
Should I see it? It’s a must-see for anyone interested in low-budget filmmaking. And even if you’re not, it’s worth seeing just to have a bit of background for the sequels, which I consider to be superior installments.
Starring: Carlos Gallardo, Consuelo Gómez, Reinol Martinez, Peter Marquardt
Director: Robert Rodriguez
Rating: R
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Robert Rodriguez wasn’t always a Hollywood big shot. Before the Spy Kids movies, before Sin City, before its bigger-budget sequels, he produced a small, low-budget film for $7,000. Its name: El Mariachi. His goal: gain experience, and have it distributed by the Spanish straight-to-video market in order to make enough profit to direct more movies.
What he ended up doing was revolutionizing how movies were made.
In 1992, El Mariachi ended up going on to be distributed by Miramax into theaters, and winning the Audience Award at Sundance. Rodriguez went from being a young, Mexican filmmaker without much professional experience to being thrust into the glamour and money-making machine that is Hollywood.
What’s so significant about El Mariachi? It showed that good, high-quality movies could be made on a low budget. It became a frontrunner in the independent film revolution that has continued to grow, and changed how movies today are made.
It’s hard to review a movie that so greatly contributed to the evolution of cinema. On the one hand, it’s a strong example of how money isn’t necessary to make movies. On the other hand…it doesn’t seem as “professional” today as it did more than ten years ago.
The plot of El Mariachi is fairly simple: a young mariachi comes into a small Mexican town looking for work. Meanwhile, a local drug lord named Moco tries unsuccessfully to kill a guy named Azul who wants the money he’s owed from a previous deal. Azul is out for revenge, and Moco’s still trying too get rid of him. The problem: Azul dresses in black and carries a guitar case full of weapons. The next thing you know, our mariachi is mistaken for Azul, and forced to fend for his life against Moco’s thugs.
It’s a simple story about a case mistaken identity. Nothing new.
The movie’s main strength lies in the directing. Not only did Rodriguez manage to direct an action movie for only a few thousand dollars, but it looks good. Even here we can see the beginnings of Rodriguez’s focus on intriguing visuals. The shots are well thought-out, the color palette works well, and the simple lighting (which consisted entirely of two cheap lights you can get at any hardware store) gets the job done. Simple techniques such as speeding up or slowing down the action are pulled off to maximum effect, whether it be to increase the tension or as a form of comic relief.
Unfortunately, the movie does have some significant flaws. However, that’s to be expected with a budget of $7,000. The acting is one element that suffers as a result of low financing – none of the actors had any professional experience. Keeping this in mind, Carlos Gallardo does an excellent job in the titular role; the audience gets a clear sense of his longing to be a good musician, and his confusion at suddenly being shot at for no good reason. Unfortunately, the other actors don’t hold up quite as well. Consuelo Gómez gives a merely tolerable performance as El Mariachi’s love interest. Reinol Martinez is probably the weakest of the main actors – his handling of Azul’s dialogue hardly makes him seem like a threatening character. He’s even worse than Peter Marquardt, whose broken Spanish hardly inspires a sense of fear from the audience – for the main villain, he doesn’t seem very imposing or dangerous.
Rodriguez’s shooting style was extremely fast and efficient; most of the time, only a single take was done of each shot in order to save film. As Rodriguez explains it, this forced him to work creatively around problems that would ordinarily just be solved by throwing money at them. He edited the movie in his head as he went along – he would shoot each actor saying their lines once, zooming in and out between sentences, so he could then simply cut between characters and make it look like more than one camera was used. That’s fine if you need to save money, but it makes for some very hectic editing at times. There are moments in the movie where the camera cuts back and forth so fast you hardly have time to absorb each shot. If you take into account that it’s a low-budget movie, that’s fine, but as a movie in general that makes for a very disjointed atmosphere. Luckily, the editing is fine most of the time – this problem only arises in certain scenes.
El Mariachi is an action movie. Unfortunately, by today’s standards, the action isn’t great. The action that is present is done well enough; unfortunately, there’s not enough of it. As a result, the pacing suffers from being too slow at times. We’re presented with some well-shot and creative shootouts, but they’re over far too quickly. It’s rated R for violence, but parents shouldn’t worry too much; it’s pretty tame by today’s standards, despite the fact that it can be pretty bloody at times.
Overall, El Mariachi is a pretty good movie. It’s a simple story with a lot of heart, and a prime example of what one can accomplish with little or no budget. It ends on a cliffhanger that isn’t abrupt or startling, but presented in such a way that you want to see what happens to El Mariachi. Good thing there are sequels. This first installment of what Rodriguez calls the “Mariachi Trilogy” isn’t a masterpiece when compared to movies in general, but it’s a landmark of independent film and worth renting. Yes, there are flaws, but for a director could do a lot worse for a debut film, let alone one made for only $7,000. I give it a 6.5/10.
The Bottom Line: A stunning achievement when you take its budget into account. A fair movie even when you don’t.
Should I see it? It’s a must-see for anyone interested in low-budget filmmaking. And even if you’re not, it’s worth seeing just to have a bit of background for the sequels, which I consider to be superior installments.