Mexico’s Government Becomes the Reluctant Star of the Show

It started as a simple protest. Reading about yet another peso devaluation in December 1994 and watching his money nearly evaporate overnight, film director Luis Estrada had an idea: What about a movie that featured the folly and corruption of Mexico’s long-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party?

So the seed was planted for “La Ley de Herodes” (Herod’s Law), a movie that was, ironically, financed in part by the government’s film institute. Estrada’s cinematic vision ultimately tested the boundaries of acceptable social criticism of Mexico’s political system.

As the director and co-writer completed his film last November and prepared for its opening, he did not expect a furor. Getting the movie released, however, became a near-epic battle in which he found himself warring with party bureaucrats who, Estrada says, tried to buy him out, blackmail him and sabotage the film to delay its release until after the July presidential election.

“La Ley de Herodes” is, after all, the first Mexican movie to directly attack the party--or even dare to name it. The protagonist, an ignorant trash dump janitor catapulted to small-town mayor by the party hierarchy, wears his PRI lapel button as a ticket to complete indemnity.

“I thought it was time we call a spade a spade in film,” said Estrada, a short, wiry man whose tweed blazers and glasses give him a professorial air.

The film, a scathing black comedy set in the late 1940s, points to the PRI as the creator of corruption, cynicism and even murder in Mexican politics.

“The best comedy ever made in Mexico has come from politicians, with their absurdity, their madness, their excesses,” Estrada said recently on a visit to Los Angeles. “I tried to write it as a fable, a dark comedy without a moral.”

Estrada was asked by government officials to change the film’s ending: The protagonist not only gets away with murder, he is also rewarded with higher status in the party machine. Estrada refused.

“The real problem is that the system actually rewards the corruption,” Estrada said. “There is impunity in Mexico.”

After months of negotiation, amid cries of censorship and scandalous accusations, Estrada was able to make a deal with IMCINE, the government film institute, to buy back its financing, paving the way for the film’s release. In January, “Herodes” tied with another Mexican film as the winner of this year’s Sundance Film Festival’s award for best Latin American movie. In mid-February, “La Ley de Herodes” was finally released in Mexican theaters.

Responding to a marketing campaign that asked “Why Won’t They Let You See It?,” hundreds of thousands have turned out in the last two weeks to do just that. The film has even become a part of the national political debate, with at least one newspaper asking representatives of each party to discuss it and its reflection of Mexican politics. The PRI representative did not find the film amusing.

The film has done well, making more than $1.5 million at the box office nationwide since its Feb. 14 release, according to the distributor. Though that may seem a pittance by Hollywood standards, the numbers are good for a Mexican film.

Although the audience has been large, the reaction has been, for the most part, calm and somewhat anticlimactic. The movie is not telling Mexicans anything they don’t already know.

Some in the PRI Admit Government Overreacted

“This reflects the reality of our political culture. . . . You see a clear vision of a corrupt political system,” said Flor Toledo, 26, a gym teacher, as she walked out of a Mexico City theater. “I can’t say it’s an excellent film, but it’s an important theme.”

Estrada and others say the government’s reaction to the film is yet another example of the dinosaur remnants plaguing the PRI. It is, after all, just a movie.

Even some in the PRI admit that government functionaries overreacted and made a huge blunder when they tried to prevent the film’s screening in November at a film festival in Acapulco.

“The PRI committed an error in reacting as it did at the beginning,” a senior PRI official said on condition of anonymity. “The publicity for the ‘Ley de Herodes’ was provided by the PRI.”

Sometimes, a society’s most significant push toward freedom of thought and speech occurs through artistic and creative impulses, not via politics.

“I think this society is changing very fast from being very closed to being global and open,” said veteran producer Bertha Navarro. “I think often filmmakers can help propel change.”

Others say this is a simpler issue concerning the role of the government’s film institute, which originally financed 60% of “La Ley de Herodes.”

The scandal caused the director of the institute, Enrique Amerena--who had approved the film’s original script and his agency’s financing--and his staff to resign in December.

The institute, which oversees movie production for the National Culture and Arts Council, is increasingly being bypassed by filmmakers and independent producers unwilling to deal with bureaucratic entanglements or with the possibility of censorship. Its new regime, led by Alejandro Pelayo, says it is starting with a clean slate and will continue to support filmmakers despite the “Ley de Herodes” scandal.

But a younger generation of Mexican filmmakers is instead turning increasingly to co-production partnerships with the nation’s business elite as well as with Spanish, French and U.S. production companies. Mexican films are receiving more recognition and distribution in the United States and Europe. (Estrada is negotiating with distributors for a U.S. release.)

After enjoying a golden age of film in the 1940s, Mexican film suffered through many years of creative and financial neglect. Only in the last five years has there been a renaissance, with hip and relevant movies luring audiences back. Among them: last year’s “Sexo, Pudor y Lagrimas” (Sex, Shame and Tears), which became Mexico’s biggest-ever home-grown box-office hit; the critically acclaimed “Bajo California”; and many other films that have received international awards and distribution.

Some of the movies are throwing hard punches at Mexico’s most powerful groups. For example, “Todo el Poder” (All the Power), released in early February, takes on Mexico City’s police force, portraying its members as predators, assassins and culprits responsible for skyrocketing crime and spate of kidnapping. That film was released in more than 300 theaters nationwide and was seen by more Mexicans in its first weekend than “La Ley de Herodes.”

Some say the problems Estrada’s movie faced will help break open a path for future filmmakers who want to make films directly critical of the governing party.

“I think the ‘Ley de Herodes’ incident will never again allow the government to censor,” said Enrique Renteria, co-writer of “Todo el Poder.” “A society needs to have these kinds of apertures. I think this is a very important episode for Mexican film.”

Indeed, Mexico’s intellectual, artistic and film communities--a group often divided into cliques--came together in forceful solidarity when the scandal began.

“We put aside who was with what group to defend freedom of speech. We all thought if they do this with this movie, they may take other scripts and take things out that were objectionable to them,” said Marcela Fuentes Berain, who is writing a dark comedy about Mexico’s corrupt political system of the 1920s.

Until 1992, Mexico’s films were sent to the Office of Control of Content, the official script approval agency since the 1930s. There were several films dealing in a roundabout way with corruption and government-sponsored violence that were either censored or edited, said Mexican film historian Emilio Garcia Riera. Most notable was the 1960 film “La Sombra del Caudillo” (The Shadow of the Caudillo) by Julio Bracho, a bootleg copy of which was finally released in 1992--so many years after it was made that it was barely noticed. Although the government never collaborated with filmmakers in making propaganda films, as occurred in Nazi Germany and Josef Stalin’s Soviet Union, directors did exercise auto-censorship to ensure that their movies would be made, said Garcia Riera.

But, he added, times have changed.

“Mexico has made such strides toward democracy that it really makes censorship look anachronistic,” he said.

In “La Ley de Herodes” no one is a hero. Estrada takes on the Catholic Church, the opposition party and the ignorant residents of the town, which is essentially run by a foul-mouthed madam.

Indeed, the title of the film comes from a common Mexican refrain called Herod’s Law, meaning that citizens are often faced with no choice: Either they join in the corruption or their lives are made more difficult.

Though the film has finally been released, Estrada is still a little paranoid and could grow more so if his film continues to attract audiences.

“If it’s successful, the film could be in theaters for many weeks,” he said. “Will they let it run until the election?”

In the meantime, the negative has been safely deposited in the United States.

Lorenza Munoz reported from Los Angeles; Mary Beth Sheridan reported from Mexico City, where she is The Times’ bureau chief.