1990 | United States | Experimental

Border Brujo

  • English, Spanish 52 mins
  • Director | Isaac Artenstein, Guillermo Gómez-Peña
  • Writer | Guillermo Gómez-Peña
  • Producer | Isaac Artenstein, San Diego State University

STATUS: Released

This film is currently not available.   

Sitting at an altar decorated with a kitsch collection of cultural fetish items, and wearing a border patrolman’s jacket decorated with buttons, bananas, beads, and shells, Gómez-Peña delivers a sly and bitter indictment of U.S. colonial attitudes toward Mexican culture and history. Whirling through various Mexican American stereotypes, pulling on costumes as easily as accents, Gómez-Peña emphasizes the collision of Mexican and American cultures, their mixture and misunderstanding of each other, each appearing as a dream/nightmare reflection of the “Other.” In turns powerful and playful, Border Brujo poignantly illustrates the double edge of forced cultural occupation.

Performance Latino/Chicano Satire Identity Culture
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