Screen/Society--N.C. Latin American Film Festival--"El Infierno"

Monday, November 7, 2011 - 2:00pm to 4:30pm
Screen/Society--N.C. Latin American Film Festival--"El Infierno"

Film Screening:

El Infierno
(Luis Estrada, 2010, 145 min, Mexico, Spanish with English subtitles, Color, 35mm)

The Mexican blockbuster film, El Infierno, by director Luis Estrada, is packed with plot elements straight out of high Greek or Shakespearean drama. There is vengeance and betrayal, greed and lust, a prodigal son and an heir lost. After living and working in the United States for twenty years, Benjamin Garcia (aka “El Benny”) is deported to Mexico. He returns to find his hometown deeper in poverty and more violent than ever, ruled over by vicious drug lords. Government, religious, and police corruption is rampant. Grudgingly, Garcia is lured over to the ranks of the local gangsters. With hints of the Coen brothers, Scorsese, and Kurosawa, this controversial third installment in Estrada’s trilogy on Mexico is unrestrained, provocative and full of black humor. The government first funded the film, only to then give it the most restricted movie rating, and not for the reasons you might expect.

-- Discussion to follow!

Cost: Free and open to the public

Sponsors: The Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, the Duke-UNC Consortium in Latin American and Caribbean studies, the Duke University Center for International Studies, and the Program in the Arts of the Moving Image (AMI)

Bryan Center Griffith Film Theater