Nudo Mixteco

SON OF MONARCHS: resolving his identity

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Photo caption: Tenoch Huerta in SON OF MONARCHS. Courtesy of SFFILM.

In the contemplative indie Son of Monarchs, things seem to be going well for the young biologist Mendel (Tenoch Huerta). His career as a scientist at an elite NYC institution seems to be starting well, his mentor respects and encourages him, his peers invite him to socialize and he’s dating a woman with a very unusual hobby. But something is not right, and it’s that Mendel’s very identity is unresolved,.

Mendel comes from rural Michoacán, which Nature has blessed with Monarch butterflies and cursed with disasters that traumatized Mendel in his childhood. The same childhood experiences have built his passion to understand life and have estranged him from his brother and their homeland. When he has occasion to revisit Michoacán, he can no longer compartmentalize his inner conflict.

SON OF MONARCHS. Courtesy of SFFILM.

Son of Monarchs is the second feature for writer-director Alexis Gambis, who makes the most out of the visual contrast between chilly NYC and the vivid warm of Michoacán.

Tenoch Huerta is very good as the somber, restless Mendel. Gabino Rodriguez (recently in the deadpan Fauna and a very scary villain in Sin Nombre) brightens the Michoacán segment.

I first saw Son of Monarchs at this year’s San Francisco International Film Festival (SFFILM). It’s now streaming on HBO Max.

NUDO MIXTECO: three women, three dramas

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A scene from Angeles Cruz’s NUDO MEXTECO. Photo courtesy of SFFILM

In Nudo Mixteco, we visit an indigenous Mixtec village in Southern Mexico and get three dramas for the price of one. It’s the annual festival, and three long-absent locals return home. One is there for her mom’s funeral. another to intervene in her daughter’s welfare and the third has just decided that’s time to come back home.

Nudo is Spanish for “knot”, and the three stories form a loose braid. As in Kieślowski’s Blue/Red/White, the characters in each plot thread can be spotted in the others.

In each story, the women face constraints of patriarchy and traditional culture. An out lesbian has built a life in the city, but her father in the village cannot accept her sexuality, and even blames it for her mother’s death. Another woman also works in the city, and has left her daughter to be cared for by her sister in the village; reports of the daughter’s behavior trigger concern stemming from the mom’s own childhood sexual abuse.

In the third story, a village man has been working in the US. He had promised his wife that he would be gone six months, but it’s been three years. He expects that he can resume their lives as before, but his wife has moved on. Each feels betrayed by the other, and the village is convened to reach a community decision on a just outcome.

Nudo Mixteco is the debut feature for writer-director Angeles Cruz, who has won Ariels (Mexico’s Oscars) for her short films. Cruz is an accomplished actress, who was nominated for a best actress Ariel in 2018.

I screened Nudo Mixteco at SFFILM, where it won a jury award.

A scene from Angeles Cruz’s NUDO MEXTECO. Photo courtesy of SFFILM