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Dir. Matt Piedmont
USA
The newest kinds of parody films
that tackle cult and niche material are divisive. Unlike Airplane! (1980), they are in danger of only being designed for
single viewings only, unable to create memorable worlds to match the jokes; Black Dynamite (2009) fell to pieces on
the second viewing for example. I have hope for Norwegian Ninja (2010), and in its favour it has a full story, even
in such a short running time, and is tackling real life Norwegian political
history which adds layers to it. Casa de
mi Padre, based on Mexican melodramas, is in a precarious place for me even
if I admire what it attempts to do. I have not seen anything that could have
influenced this film, so it came to me as a very unconventional work, one,
regardless of what happens on another
viewing, I will applaud for being an American comedy taking an original
turn.
When two drug lords – his own
brother (Diego Luna) and the local
lord Onza (Gael Garcia Bernal) –
begin a bloody conflict, pushed forward by a corrupt American FBI agent and
Mexican police, the naive rancher Armando Alvarez (Will Farrell) will have to learn what it means to be a man to
protect what he loves. Done completely deadpan, it is supposed to be a Mexican
film with everyone, including Farrell,
speaking in Spanish. What could have been quite insulting to Hispanic viewers,
with its intentionally fake model effects and back projection, is far more
interesting than a cheap parody. It’s whole premise and concept is what could
make it remembered in the future even if it’s flawed in the final results. At
only eighty minutes, if suffers from a thin running time which prevents it from
taking a sketch and making it into fully
formed, unique creation. Many of these intentional cultish films spend most of
the running time setting up the premise and not deepening them, which Casa de mi Padre does suffer from.
This film could survive in the
eyes of viewers in that, embracing its cultural influences fully, it is
inspired and exhilarating. In eighty minutes it includes some immensely good
musical numbers, a throwback to spaghetti western title themes that Quentin Tarantino wishes he had, a
willingness to tackle something as serious as the Mexican drug wars in a way
that isn’t trivialising, and a legitimate cinematic quality to the material,
far from flatly made comedies as we expect now but with a mix of artificial and
real sets that is distinct and imaginative. When it does play with the tropes
of “bad” filmmaking – awkward delays in dialogue, obviously fake animals,
in-film advertising – it comes as peculiarly funny rather than a self conscious
attempt at being awful. And that it is playing itself as a serious film,
including bloody gunfights and tragedy, while creating an off-balanced tone to
the story at first, actually makes it difficult to not be caught up with the narrative
arch even when you’re still noticing the subtle and blatant absurdities in the
fore and background of scenes. The only hesitation I have with giving the film
more praise is its slightness, and whether this will do the same to it as it
did to Black Dynamite, making it
pointless to watch it after a first viewing, is up to what happens on another
viewing. Aside from this it is the kind of unconventional idea you want more
comedy films to go along with.
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