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I'm helping a friend who is a teacher program for a cinema class for next semester. It's a cultural class focusing on the Mexican people, politics, experimentation, all of that fun stuff really. Problem is that it's difficult to find the great and even good films subtitled in English and I figure this board could help. She already knows of and is considering the few Mexican Bunuels that are out there plus the Jodorowskys (great example of territorization), but not much else is known.

I'm pretty sure the Fernando de Fuentes trilogy (Let's Go With Pancho Villa, El Compadre Mendoza and Prisoner 13) includes english subtitles. And I seem to remember Macario also having them.
The mexican Buñuels are a pretty good option, though, I'd definitely include a couple of them. El Bruto in particular is way underrated.

Does she have the talent to custom-add fansubs to DVDs? Because that's her best chance for these, except for the Pedro Infante films Warner put out.

Oh, I guess lot of the Arturo Ripstein films have subtitles. So there are those.

I doubt she does, not the most computer literate person. She can speak Spanish fluently, the likely students less so. Any particular recommendations amongst the Infantes and Ripsteins?

Deep Crimson is his most famous here. Lugar sans limite seems to be his most acclaimed over there. I remember really liking the Bunuelesque El imperio de la fortuna when I saw it.

I can't say I'm crazy about the Pedro Infante films I've seen, but Nosotros, los pobres is something like the most successful Mexican film ever, so it has that going for it.

It seems that El imperio de la fortuna is OOP and going high. A Facets of Such is Life seems to exist, but I assume it's typical Facets. La Perdicion de los Hombres seems to have an English subbed disc as does La Virgen de la Lujuria. Are those three of interest?

Just to get the obvious ones out of the way, Cronos, Amores Perros, Like Water for Chocolate, Y Tu Mama Tambien, and Solo Con Tu Pareja are all pretty easy to get, off the top of my head. I can also recommend this one secondhand- I haven't actually gotten to see it, but it's meant to be interestingly crazy and that release definitely has English subs.

That's rather outside a teacher's wages, but I'll bring it up all the same.

Oh, damn, didn't see the price on that one, that sucks. It's gettable via backchannels, though.

knives wrote:Any particular recommendations amongst the Infantes and Ripsteins?

I hold El castillo de la pureza in the highest regard among the Ripsteins but, since I dunno if that one includes subtitles, I'll second The Place Without Limits.
Another fine mexican film with english subs on its DVD is La pasión según Berenice (The Passion According to Berenice).

Are the Casanegra discs from Panic House still in print? There's a whole bunch of classic Mexican horror flicks. Also, Mondo Macabro put out some of Juan Lopez Moctezuma's films.

No-one's mentioned the films of Carlos Reygadas yet, or more recent examples of Mexican cinema such as Lake Tahoe, Défecit, Alamar, La Zona and so on. There's also Alex Cox's excellent Highway Patrolman.

The Aventurera DVD is easy to get a hold of and it has subtitles. It's a really great juicy melodrama/musical from 1950. If you're in the mood for more Ninon Sevilla, maybe check out Victimas del Pecado, never seen it but it is very popular and it's out on DVD.

El esqueleto de la señora Morales is an awesome dark comedy, I haven't seen the DVD but it has subtitles and the movie gets played on a regular basis on LATV with subtitles. Actually, a way to see a lot of Mexican movies with subtitles is through LATV. But the issue is always the frequent commercials and it seems films are edited to fit that timeslot. TCM showed a lot of great Mexican films back in May 2005, maybe you can find someone that recorded them.

antnield wrote:No-one's mentioned the films of Carlos Reygadas yet, or more recent examples of Mexican cinema such as Lake Tahoe, Défecit, Alamar, La Zona and so on. There's also Alex Cox's excellent Highway Patrolman.

Oh yeah, Reygadas is great, though the DVDs, while subbed, have wanting transfers and some of the films have strong adult content which might not be appropriate depending on the setting. Alamar is a gorgeous film, though if memory serves, it isn't exactly dialogue heavy.

One of the best ones that available subbed and are actually about Mexico in a significant way is La Ley de Herodes (Herod's Law) which is a great black comedy that satirizes the way the country's party politics work.
I wrote more about it here. It's available again as part of a 2-pack that also includes Todo el Poder (a film I thoroughly disliked) and there are still used copies of the standalone release that are still not expensive.

Another one is Canoa, an excellent historical film set in the tumultuous year of '68, which was a pivotal political moment for Mexico in many ways. It's by Felipe Cazals, a peer of Ripstein. It might be worth noting that the film reaches a notoriously bloody climax. The one I have that I know is subtitled seems to be out of stock at Amazon, so on the chance it's actually OOP, it might be worth grabbing one of the inexpensive used discs on Amazon Marketplace while they're still available.

The suggestion of María Candelaria was a good one, aside from the price. It's kind of a disgrace that the film is out of the running because it's $50 and the teacher has to spend her own money for classroom materials. It's a shame the Alter Films ¡Viva Mexico! collection isn't in print anymore.

antnield wrote:Mexican cinema such as Lake Tahoe, Défecit, Alamar, La Zona and so on.

Big fan of Lake Tahoe, I would also recommend Eimbcke's Duck Season.

The Fernando de Fuentes Trilogy, Anhedionisiac's mentioned above, has been released by Facets in the US and does included English subtitles. These films are important in different ways, so she might want to have a look at them.

There must have been an American release of Fernandez' Maria Candelaria, which has been reviewed by Gary here and which could be worth to be tracked down in libraries etc. As far as I know the film hasn't found a better release yet; the non-subbed Mexican DVD, which I know of, is equally disappointing. And then, Fernandez' Victimas del Pecado has been released by Strand with English subtitles. (Sorry, I've just realized those films have been mentioned already)

I guess you have already had a look at this thread about films dealing with the border region? American releases should be available for all the films I've listed in the first post. And some of the films mentioned there could be of interest for you, too.

Wu.Qinghua wrote:I guess you have already had a look at this thread about films dealing with the border region? American releases should be available for all the films I've listed in the first post. And some of the films mentioned there could be of interest for you, too.

If films dealing with the border region are being recommended, I think my favorite of all time is Les Blank's Chulas Fronteras. If you want to introduce people to the great Los Alegres de Teran, the film features a great section on Teran's most beloved musicians. It's a South Texas film dealing more with the Tex-Mex experience but the stuff with Los Alegres de Teran and Ramiro Cavazos' awesome version of Cancion Mixteca would be of great interest to anyone looking into Northern Mexico (norteño) music. The other music is more conjunto and Texas based, but it's really great music (my favorite documentary soundtrack ever).

There are several of Cantinflas' comedies available with subs (at there were the last time I checked). A couple of those get into the realms of politics, church, etc.

PillowRock wrote:There are several of Cantinflas' comedies available with subs (at there were the last time I checked). A couple of those get into the realms of politics, church, etc.

Pretty much all popular films of the time, like the Pedro Infante ones, get into such realms.
The problem with the Cantinflas comedies is that it's particular brand of humor and verbal dexterity (for the which the adjective "cantinflear" was even invented) does not translate well to english.
As a matter of fact, I'd even argue that it doesn't translate at all: I'm deaf and I've never been able to understand why Cantinflas is so popular in my country precisely because I can only rely on english subtitled copies of his films which, unfortunately, I've always found extremely lacking.

While they only seem available on a UK DVD, if you are looking for more Gael García Bernal I would add Déficit to the pile (his directorial debut), along with The Crime of Father Amaro.

Don't know if this is relevant to the OP anymore (or at all), but couldn't find a more suitable topic to post this:

Nicolás Pereda's Summer of Goliath is available for free download (.avi or DVD image) on Doc Alliance, and most of the rest of his output so far is currently streaming on Mubi. I understand his stuff has been making waves on the festival circuit - hype or not, I found Where Are Their Stories and Together quite impressive, and well worth checking out for followers of say, Lisandro Alonso or "contemporary contemplative cinema" in general (sorry to generalize - no wish to open that particular can of worms...)

Fernando de Fuentes’ Revolution Trilogy from Facets seems to be wildly out-of-print (over $400). Two of the films (Vamonos de Pancho Villa and El Prisionero 13) seem to be still available from Cinemateca at reasonable prices, but the middle film (El Compadre Mendoza) from them seems to be OOP, though not as outrageous as the Facets. Any thoughts on the quality of the Cinemateca releases?

I’m also trying to find a good subtitled DVD of the documentary Memorias de un Mexicano (1950) from Salvador and Carmen Toscano. All I’ve been able to find thus far is a poor-quality unsubtitled YouTube video. Any recommendations?

By a stroke of incredible luck, I just ran across a pristine copy of the middle film El Compadre Mendoza in my local video shop for only $3.95. This solves the problem of an affordable set of the The Revolution Trilogy and will give me a sense of the quality of the Cinemateca releases.

Still looking for information on Memorias de un Mexicano.