QUE VIVA MEXICO Movie Review

Da Zdravstvuyet Meksika

In 1930, the great Soviet director Sergei Eisenstein was getting ready to end his visit to California, having been told by Paramount Pictures that they weren't interested in his proposed adaptation of Theodore Dreiser's An American Tragedy. (Paramount and George Stevens would make that film 21 years later, as A Place in the Sun.) The studio handed Eisenstein a ticket back to the U.S.S.R. (by way of Japan), but before using it the director decided he would go south to explore the possibility of fulfilling his longtime dream of making a film on the history of Mexico and its peoples. Eisenstein was able to secure financing for the project, and soon he and his brilliant cinematographer Eduard Tisse were shooting hours and hours of stunning, spectacular footage of every imaginable aspect of Mexican society. The shoot went on through 1931, but only after the miles of film were in the can did it become apparent that Eisenstein's deal for the film did not include his right to final approval of its editing—the single aspect of filmmaking that Eisenstein believed to be the most critical. Disagreements with his collaborators and rumors about his behavior and affiliations that were circulating back home contributed to what was to become a legendary catastrophe—a potentially great film that would remain eternally unfinished. Footage from the project was assembled into many different forms during the years—including a study for the completed project called Time in the Sun—but it wasn't until 1979 that Eisenstein's original collaborator, Grigori Alexandrov, released an 85-minute Que Viva Mexico that was said to approximate Eisenstein's intentions. The shape may indeed be similar to what was envisioned by Eisenstein, yet the footage—while visually overwhelming—remains only footage. Whatever Que Viva Mexico might have become under Eisenstein's control remains a subject for speculation, but this “reconstruction,” which is comprised of film by Sergei Eisenstein, should never be mistaken for a film by Sergei Eisenstein.

NEXT STOP … It's All True, The Epic That Never Was, Queen Kelly

1932 85m/B RU D: Sergei Eisenstein; W: Sergei Eisenstein, Grigori Alexandrov; C: Eduard Tisse. VHS KIV