Revisiting Mexico (Doc Mode 3)
Posted by Gerardo Alba on April 29, 2014
Filed under Uncategorized
This summer, after eight years I was able to visit Mexico again. For two and a half weeks I was able to visit Piedras Negras and San Juan de los Lagos, two cities I had been to before and Puerto Vallarta, a city I had never experienced before. Most of the clips I used were of Puerto Vallarta because having never been there; I wanted to record as much as possible. Instead of placing the videos in chronological order, I tried to link the videos either visually or sonically. For example, the final image of my cousins riding a seesaw in a Piedras Negras plaza visually led me to place the clip of native dancers in Puerto Vallarta performing at the top of a pole. Compiled, I think the videos represent an anthropological documentary while also containing autobiographical components because they represent my experience.
According to Geertz, “Doing ethnography is like trying to read (in the sense of “construct a reading of”) a manuscript-foreign, faded, full of ellipses, incoherencies, suspicious emendations, and tendentious commentaries, but written not in conventionalized graphs of sound but in transient examples of shaped behavior” (10). Looking back on the videos, I have been able to create my own analysis of the culture I was able to revisit. When it came to the videos of Piedras Negras and San Juan (the seesaw/wrestling and musician clips), two cities I visited a lot as a child, they reflected the associations with my childhood. My dad always took us to these Mexican wrestling matches and the plaza, and to take my younger brother and cousins is the continuation of our culture.
While clips of those two cities were more autobiographical, the clips of Puerto Vallarta were more anthropological/ethnographic. According to Barnouw, commentary in ethnographic film began to be seen as a limiting instead of a liberating factor and “with full sound, but without official guidance, filmed material seemed to offer a far greater diversity of vistas to probe and assess” (251). Without commentary on the clips, viewers are able to create their own analysis of the footage provided. From my own analysis, I also felt that commentary was not needed because most of the clips were about Puerto Vallarta, which did not require much knowledge of the language or culture. As a resort town, I realized that the city catered more to tourists instead of native inhabitants, so many of the acts were largely visual which most people could understand. Because of the large tourist culture, many of the acts like the clown show or the native dancers are put on for free and rely on tips from people appreciating their culture. Even though I had some ties to the culture through my dad’s family, I definitely felt like a tourist and was glad I was able to document my experience as well as the culture.
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kwaker on May 7th, 2014 1:34 am
This was a really insightful post. I decided to read your blog before I watched the video, and I believe I did that in the correct order. After knowing your connection with the footage, I found the content to be both anthropological and autobiographical—just as you said.
The autobiographical part was very much apparent. The shaking of the camera and the snippets that you took feel extremely personal. They carry that sense of a casual recording for someone’s memory’s sake. As a viewer, I very much felt connected to the person behind the camera.
The anthropological part is telling as well. You can gather from the video what various types of music people listen to, as well as how they respond to the music, what a small town party feels and looks like, what the street culture is like, what street performers and musicians do and how people respond to them, a type of sport that Mexicans participate in, and the general attitude of the people there.
Well done.