Ponchos y sarapes: El cine mexicano en Buenos Aires (1934–1943) by Ángel Miquel (review)

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Reviewed by:

• Ponchos y sarapes: El cine mexicano en Buenos Aires (1934–1943) by Ángel Miquel
• Jose Antonio Intriago Suarez

Ponchos y sarapes: El cine mexicano en Buenos Aires (1934–1943). By Ángel Miquel. Peter Lang, 2021. 196 pp.

My grandfather loved movies, especially the Westerns he used to watch as a kid in Saturday matinees with his brothers. His favorites were Mexican films, with songs, action, humor, and romance. They were some of the biggest Spanish-language films available in much of South America. These thoughts came to my mind as I read Ponchos y sarapes: El cine mexicano en Buenos Aires (1934–1943) by Ángel Miquel. The book, published by Peter Lang in 2021, takes a storyteller’s approach, guiding readers through an important period of early cultural exchange between two of the biggest consumer markets in Spanish-speaking America. The central goal espoused by Miquel is to explore an under-studied period where the bases of Mexicós Golden Age of Cinema were cemented. The strength of the book lies in its multipronged approach to the topic: the examination not only of various aspects of the business of movies, including production, distribution, and the consuming of the cultural artefacts themselves, but also of the movies’ reception through the writings of numerous professional critics of the period. The work is divided into four chapters with multiple appendices that include movie data for the period as well as promotional materials and an index with the bibliographical [End Page 167] information of the reviews used in the monograph. Ponchos y sarapes is aimed at those interested in a scholarly approach to an aspect of Mexican cinema, but it will also find a home with those interested in a broader approach to the commerce of culture between nations.

After an introduction that informs the reader of the genesis of the project, as well as a description of the work’s print sources and the general structure of the work, the book’s first chapter, entitled “Indefinición” (“undefined”), focuses on the period between 1934 and 1936. This chapter gives readers an account of the first nine Mexican films to be shown in Buenos Aires theaters. Here is where the multipronged approach of reception studies, historical assessment, and cultural criticism first appears to the reader. By weaving these three different strands, Miquel threads together the evolution of the Argentinian capital’s people’s consumption of Mexican cultural products and performers in an engrossing narrative that is supplemented by the authoŕs thoughts on the reasons behind these behaviors based on the evidence presented. Each chapter finishes with a statistics section, where Miquel delves into the raw data and compares the numbers of Mexican, Hispanic (Spain), Argentinian, and US productions. In this first chapter, the focus is on how Mexican cinema had to overcome systemic barriers connected to commerce and a glut of other foreign films to find its space in the Buenos Aires market, a key aspect of which was the cultural exchange with regard to distributors.

The next chapter, “Enfoque” (“focus”), covers the years 1937 to 1939, the start of the Golden Age of Mexican cinema. It begins by looking at Allá en el Rancho Grande, which is considered one of the best films of that era. There are numerous reviews of the film that clue readers in on elements that resulted in the positive reception of Mexican films in Buenos Aires. The focus on this film also helps illustrate an important point in that it became clear to the Argentinian film critics that there were big differences in the way US movies portrayed the Latino experience and culture compared to the way Mexicans, and by extension Argentinians, could portray them. The chapter also covers early attempts at transnational collaboration on the distribution end, the importance of Mexican diplomats in the promotion and distribution of their nation’s films, and the slowing down of the Spanish film stream due to the Civil War. An important point is made here about the early concerns of protecting the [End Page 168] local film industry through strategic alliances to prevent the US Spanish-language products from taking over the Argentinian market.

Chapter 3...