Lejos de Veracruz

Abstract

The urban landscape of Mexico City has been the main subject of many Mexican films throughout the years, transforming the city into a character itself. The movie Güeros (dir. Alonso Ruizpalacios, 2014) is no exception, telling the story of four young people navigating the metropolis at a time of political and social turmoil in late 1990s Mexico. This essay discusses the intersection between three elements that construct the utopia these characters are looking for: the city, its sounds, and a former rock star. The main intention is to foreground the sounds of the city not as an accessory to the moving image, but as an integral part of the construction of the plot, drawing from R. Murray Schafer’s concept of “soundscape” (1979), as well as on Josh Kun’s (2005) and Brandon LaBelle’s (2010) discussions around space and sound. The film is shot in black and white in an effort to tell a tale of dualism, one that insists on constructing otherness through opposition, primarily as it relates to the urban. By following the binary gesture first presented by the chiaroscuro, this essay argues that silence opens up a possibility for intimacy as opposed to a deafening environment that engulfs the inner worlds of its inhabitants. The search for a home is framed by aural elements that resist the regime of noise that characterizes the city. I propose a counterintuitive analysis that unpacks the symbolic charge of these narrative elements as they tell a parallel story that may not be portrayed in purely visual terms.