Northwest Film Forum

 

 

Awarded Best First Feature at the Berlinale, Alonzo Ruizpalacios’s full-length debut captures the tumultuous coming of age of Tomás, a fair-skinned teenager sent by his exhausted mother to live in Mexico City with his dark-skinned brother. Set amidst the National University of Mexico’s student strike of 1999, brothers Tomás and Federico navigate the spectrum of disenfranchisement and youthful enthusiasm from behind the wheel of an aging Volkswagen. A road movie that never really goes anywhere, geographically, Güeros nevertheless presents a beautifully nostalgic portrait of youth with a subversion and spunk reminiscent of the French New Wave. Shot in black and white, Ruizpalacio’s film nods to the visual poetry of directors like Godard, Truffaut, and even Jim Jarmusch, delighting in the humor, exuberance and insouciance of teenagehood.