A surrealist love letter to Mexico that hits harder than the drink it's named after.
Nearly thirty years after making his surrealist La Formula Secreta, director Rubén Gámez returned to filmmaking with this impressionistic portrait of modern-day Mexico. Reminiscent in some ways of Godfrey Reggio’s Koyaanisqatsi, Tequila appears to be a cinematic extension of Mexico’s muralist tradition, a contemporary equivalent of Diego Rivera or David Alfaro Siqueiros with vignettes, quick ideas, visual puns, cartoons, and political statements.
Direction
Gámez channels Rivera and Siqueiros into pure cinematic delirium.
Cinematography
Every frame fights to be hung in a museum.
Production
Vignettes that feel like someone weaponized a fever dream.
Director
Rubén Gámez
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Gámez was part of the 'Nuevo Cine' movement that rebelled against Mexico's commercial film industry, making this essentially a 90-minute middle finger to mainstream cinema.
The film's comparison to Koyaanisqatsi isn't casual—both use Philip Glass-inspired scores and montage to indict modernity, though Gámez is way more interested in making you uncomfortable than Reggio ever was.
MX
