Leticia Neria PhD thesis - Research@StAndrews:FullText ...

Alcoriza’s satire since Lucha Villa sings dreadfully, which disappoints the audience’s
expectations, and Sara García does ‘a grotesque parody of herself’ 34 by misbehaving,
swearing and eating without manners.
Image unavailable due to
copyright restrictions
Image 4.2. ‘Doña Lolita, Gregorio, his girlfriend, Eufemio and Isabel’.
Mecánica Nacional, dir. by Luis Alcoriza (1971) (in colour)
Mecánica Nacional is an exaggeration of Mexican behaviour, principally of those from
Mexico City. The film is Alcoriza’s view of modern Mexican society in times of
economic boom, a society in contact with other cultural expressions. The characters are
caricatured and exposed to extreme situations. Alcoriza was prudent, given that he was
Spanish, and he included a Spanish couple having a feast and behaving like animals.
This couple, according to García Riera, was Alcoriza’s way to criticise his compatriots 35
and make it clear he was not setting himself above Mexicans.
The film was screened for thirty nine weeks in theatres, 36 a success for a
Mexican film. Along with El Águila Descalza and Calzonzin Inspector, it featured in a
Mexican film festival organised in Paris in 1973. 37 Alcoriza remained active during
Echeverría’s presidential term and made four more films —none as successful as
Mecánica Nacional—in which he also explored the Mexican psyche. After the
34
Mora, Mexican Cinema… p 122.
35
García Riera, Historia documental…, 15: 1970-1971, p. 257.
36
Ibid., p. 256.
37
García Riera, Historia documental…, 16: 1972-1973, p. 158.
170