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The Latin American culture fosters a preoccupation with death. On All Souls, Mexicans head en masse to graveyards, there to consume skulls of candy in a carnival like atmosphere. Garcia Marquez wrote chronicles of an announced death. Mercade remains firmly rooted in this funereal tradition. After an innocent introduction in which an impressionistically painted wood forms the decor for a slowly falling drop of blood (compare the myth of the Chinese water torture), there are a few well chosen quotations from renowned doom-mongers like Blake, Marx and Hegel and then the exposé really gets underway. A circle coupling oppositional concepts is projected over an image of the female pubic area. Sex and death form the most fundamental and inspiring of these duos. The story of the woman who must deliver her child in a prison of the Dirty Argentinean Civil War is a wonderful, extremely distressing example. A photo of Maradonna as ‘god with a football’ is not less dreadful as far as implication goes. Even old family films can evoke something other than endearment. What is really clever is that, despite the black theme, Mercado has not produced a horror show, but has managed to combine revulsion with fascination and compassion.
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Erik Daams
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Designs Daniel Gonzalez, Camera Marcello Mercado, Light Mario Savanco, Editing Martín Pérez Aguirre, Sound Luciano Diz, Music Jorge Castro, Luis Lewin, Jorge Navarro, Voice Formación Sonora II unc., Production Alejandro Brollo, Mario Savanco
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