Sundance 2009: "El General" Review - Written by Mathius Mack Gertz

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El General
Mexico/USA, 2008, 83min., color
Spanish with English subtitles
Genre: Documentary
Director: Natalia Almada
Producers: Daniel Alatorre, Natalia Almada
Cinematographer: Chuy Chavez
Music: Shahzad Ismaily, John Zorn
Sound Design: Alejandro de Icaza


Five years ago director Natalia Almada was given six hours of audio-tape recordings that her grandmother had made about her life. These were the genesis of El General, titled after her great-grandfather, El General Plutarco Elias Calles, a general in the Mexican revolution who was president from 1924 to 1928. Adored and hated, he was exiled from Mexico in 1936 and came back to die there about ten years later.

This was a great premise for a feature length documentary. Unfortunately for Almada, her grandmother didn’t leave her much that was particularly revealing about her father except on a very personal and subjective level. Therefore she tries to combine these tapes with archival film records, still pictures and articles about Calles to reveal a hypnotic and deeply compassionate portrait of the Mexican people and the forces that have shaped their lives. She is only partially successful. Without giving us background from 1810 when Mexico waged its war of Independence from Spain as well as an understanding of the culture formed by the Conquistadores and native Indian tribes prior to that, we start in the middle of the big story and are expected to know the rest. This is a mistake. I happen to have studied Mexican history but most Americans, most people, and have not. Therefore Almada leaves us with the impression that Mexican culture today has a direct cause and effect related only to the Presidential power struggles and assassinations that occurred in the 1910’s 20’s and 30’s and nothing else.

This is a feature documentary that has lost its way. It is good to see this much archival material tied together in one film, but it feels like window dressing to the story that the director wanted to tell but couldn’t from the tapes that her grandmother left her. Clean, extremely well edited, wonderful music and very good technically with some very interesting interviews, it still isn’t compelling or historical enough. In a description of the film, Director Almada says, “As Mexicans, we remain silent behind our festive masks. We laugh at our irreconcilable contradictions and accept our condition as ‘fate’ or ‘bad luck’, afraid to examine our history too closely. El General moves between my grandmother’s fractured memoires of my father and my meanderings through Mexico City.” Unfortunately this film is a meander too. Two stars.