A League of Their Own
When acclaimed screenwriter Carlos Cuarón decided to make his directorial debut with Rudo & Cursi he surrounded himself with a winning team. FOCUS learns more.
As Carlos Cuarón picked up an Oscar nomination and then a BAFTA nomination in 2001 for co-writing, with brother Alfonso, Y Tu Mama Tambien it must have seemed like heady days for Mexican cinema.
The year before Amores Perros had been a hit at Cannes and actually won the BAFTA for Best Foreign Language film. In the years that have elapsed since some major Mexican filmmakers have emerged.
Guillermo Del Toro scored international hits with the Hellboy films and Pan's Labyrinth and is currently working on the movie version of The Hobbit; Alfonso Cuarón tackled Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and Children of Men; and Alejandro González Inárritu followed Amores Perros with 21 Grams and Babel.
These three Godfathers of Latin cinema formed the production company Cha Cha Chá in 2007, and their first film is Carlos Cuarón's Rudo & Cursi a film - appropriately enough - about brotherhood.
"I didn't know that Cha Cha Chá was happening when I was trying to set the project up with Alfonso," Cuarón explains. "He called me one day and asked how it would be if we included Alejandro and Guillermo as producers. I said I'd be privileged and honoured."
Cast in Rudo & Cursi as the fraternal rivals with ambitions to make it in the tough, and not altogether level playing field, of the Mexican football leagues are Y Tu Mama Tambien stars Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna.
It's a mark of that film's success that it provided a platform for two personable young actors to make their mark in international movies including The Motorcycle Diaries and Blindness for Bernal, and Open Range and Milk for Luna.
"I wrote the script for them," Cuarón adds, "and I was always very clear that I wanted Diego to play Rudo and Gael to play Cursi. Initially they were not keen, they wanted to play each other's role.
"But the moment I said I didn't want to make Y Tu Mama Tambien 2, that I wanted to start from scratch by casting against type they got it immediately. They started to throw ideas around because that's the kind of actors they are. They're very practical."
The ups and downs of their screen relationship forms the backdrop to Carlos Cuarón's story, but while it might be set in the world of football that's only part of the drama. "I wanted to talk about brotherhood and I wanted to talk about football because I am intrigued by these themes," he says, "but I didn't want to make a football movie, or a sports movie. I just wanted to put it in there as context."
The Mexican football authorities may be less than entirely thrilled at the portrayal of their leagues as corrupt - "whether they like it or not I don't care, I just exercised my freedom," an unrepentant Cuarón states, "it's just what is common knowledge in Mexico."
Mexican cinema, on the other hand, will be more pleased that a generation of its filmmaking talent is blossoming and working together in a way that promises a great deal for the future. Whether this can be described as a golden age is a moot point though, as Carlos Cuarón is in no hurry to limit or jinx it with such a label.
"I don't think that we're in a golden age. There was a lot of talent that helped create a golden age during World War Two, so I don't relate to that at all. I think that Mexican cinema is probably in a good moment in many ways because it's well regarded everywhere, in festivals, and there's a lot of talent and a lot of great filmmakers. There's a new, younger generation coming through that is very strong."
ANWAR BRETT
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