Reviews & Ratings for
Que Viva Mexico More at IMDbPro »¡Que Viva Mexico! - Da zdravstvuyet Meksika! (original title)

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12 reviews in total

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14 out of 15 people found the following review useful:
First video version of a flawed masterpiece (nevertheless ****), 7 December 1998

Author: Aleksand from Corpus Christi, Texas USA

Although its coscenarist and director, Sergei M. Eisenstein did not live to complete "Que Viva Mexico?," the Russian who reconstructed this 1979 version for Mosfilm, Grigori Alexandrov, co-authored the film and worked closely with Eisenstein in 1931 and 1932 in the filming of the footage ultimately fashioned into several pictures, including butchered versions released by Sol Lesser and even some Bell and Howell documentaries! At some point, the man who initially commissioned the movie, Upton Sinclair, donated all or almost all of Eisenstein's footage to the Museum of Modern Art, which made it available as it was shot (take by take by take) in a "study" film. This is the first time, to my knowledge, that an edited version has appeared in video, and for that, Eisenstein fans and lovers of cinema should be jubilant! Even if Alexandrov had cut the footage completely out of order and in a form that would make Sergei Mikhailovich roll over in his grave, we can appreciate the dynamic power of the images, so ingeniously composed and photographed by Eisenstein with his longtime cameraman, Eduard Tisse. Of course, Eisenstein's remarkable scenario could never be realized EXACTLY as he wrote it, but Alexandrov did an admirable job all the same. In whatever form we see it, Eisenstein's footage reminds us that this aborted masterpiece, had he been able to complete the movie, would have been just that -- one of the greatest motion pictures of all time. It is a tragedy for film lovers that Eisenstein could not obtain the negative from the Sinclair cabal (which included the American author's Pasadena, California Standard Oil cronies!) at the time. But this 1979 version is better than nothing, and a lot better than many so-called movies churned out by Hollywood today. The film should be studied by every student of cinema, and especially photographers and editors. In truth, Eisenstein probably was planning as many as six different films, but Sinclair sent his alcoholic brother-in-law to ride herd on the Russians, to the result that the "plug was pulled" on the production short of its completion by Eisenstein. Frankly, had the latter managed to complete the movie and edit it himself, I am convinced film buffs would put it right up there with "Citizen Kane" and "Casablanca" (i.e. among the greatest masterpieces of cinema). I recommend the film highly, if only as a reminder of what might have been!

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10 out of 10 people found the following review useful:
Magic,Surrealist,and Beautiful, 15 September 2005

Author: emilio from Mexico City MEXICO

This is the greatest documentary fiction I've ever seen, despite this movie was incomplete the beauty of the images is great, with a great culture you can make magic with the camera. The Mexican people have a wonderful big culture and personally I didn't know a little things about my own country.

About the part of fiction is great that this reality is happening know and the sense of revolution is present, i think that only a Russian could understand the sense of the work people.

The drama and the courage of the indians in the defense of the honor and the repression is a symbol of the revolution that needs the country.

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11 out of 12 people found the following review useful:
Exotic and Dramatic View of Mexico, 28 August 2005

Author: Claudio Carvalho from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

In 1931, Sergei M. Eisenstein, Grigori Aleksandrov and another crew member moved to USA, to work for Paramount, but the agreement never happened. The team decided to go to Mexico to make a movie about its history and culture. They joined some Mexican intellectuals, traveled around Mexico trying to assimilate the culture of the people, and shot film. However, for some unexplained reason, the laboratory that revealed the films in Hollywood, kept them and sent them to a Museum in New York, and Eisenstein was never able to edit his movie. In 1979, the Soviet Union government retrieved the fragments and Grigori Aleksandrov edited this movie, based on the notes and storyboard of Eisenstein. "¡Que Viva Mexico! - Da zdravstvuyet Meksika!" is divided in three parts. The first one (introduction) gives a historical panel of Mexico and the Mexican people. The second part is a fiction based on the dramatic fate of a bride, submitted to the powerful farmer of the area close to her wedding day, and her fiancé, his brother and two friends trying to rescue her. The conclusion of the story would be called ""Soldadera", the wives of the soldiers, and would be based on the revolution of Mexican people. Unfortunately Eisenstein had no more budgets to film the rest of the story. The last part, called Epilog, is about the celebration of the "memorial day' (day of the dead – "dia de finados"), with the population wearing masks of skull and celebrating death. The footages are amazing, considering they were shot in 1931. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Viva Mexico!

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5 out of 6 people found the following review useful:
Mexico seen through the (surprisingly) anthropological eye of Eisenstein, 8 April 2008

Author: MisterWhiplash from United States

Considering that Que Viva Mexico was (mostly) made by Sergei Eisenstein, and funded by Upton Sinclair, the most happy surprise is that the film isn't overloaded with the kind of communist/socialist propaganda that would be immediately expected. It's not that this would be a bad thing in the technical sense; Eisenstein, on the front of being a pure visionary, couldn't be stopped no matter how thin he stretched himself for his means as a director who had to stay to party/country guidelines. And for Sinclair, the meatier the context the better the hyperbole. But with Que Viva Mexico! we get a view of the people and customs like out of a measured fever dream. We're given more-so the customs and the traditions, the practice of a marriage, the bullfights, some of the context of the history behind those 'Day of the Dead' parades. Only here and there are any blatant pleas seen and heard loud and clear (mostly involving the poorest of the poor in the lot).

Actually, it could be something, in a sense, comparable to Werner Herzog in attempting the documentary form. It's not quite fiction, but it's presenting documentary in a stylized manner, where things aren't simply stock footage but very much a set-up of the construction of drama in the scenes and scene-location specific shots and angles. And like Herzog, Eisenstein has a poet's eye for visions that many might only see in the most remote history books or travelogues. While the accompanying narration for Que Viva Mexico is a little on the creaky end, there's no lack of splendor for the senses as far as getting an eye full of carefully picked locals (i.e. the girl Concepcion for the marriage scenes) or for mixing real documentary footage of the bullfight with careful constructed shots of the bullfighter before and after the fact. Even the music plays a nifty role in the dramatization of events. And here and there, especially as the film rolls along in its last third, a subtle sensation of the surreal drifts into the proceedings.

Unfortunately, like It's All True for Orson Welles, Que Viva Mexico remains something of a carefully plucked fragment from a lost bit in the director's career. It's a minor marvel, and certainly more than a curiosity for the die-hard documentary or Mexican history buff, but it's stayed obscurer than Eisenstein's more infamous pieces (Potemkin, Alexander Nevksy) for a reason. Despite all the best intentions to simply reveal the cultural day-to-day workings and a little of the socio-political context of the Conquistadors' impact, it's a cool curiosity at best.

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6 out of 9 people found the following review useful:
Eisenstein Lite, 2 November 2001
Author: Glenn Andreiev (gandreiev@aol.com) from Huntington, NY

Film buffs know the history of this lost all too well- Eisenstein came to Hollywood to work for Paramount, Paramount and Sergei never really saw eye to eye. Before giving up on making an American Production, Upton Sinclair invited Eisenstein to make a feature film about Mexico. Eisenstein shot miles of footage, and the money and interest from backers ran out. Eisenstein was forced to return to his native Russia without his Mexican footage. The footage was cut together by others at about this time to make THUNDER OVER MEXICO, and they did not follow Eisenstein's editing notes (They simply made an edit every four seconds. Watch the film and count, you'll see what I mean...) This version, completed by his associates 30 years after his 1948 death comes close to Eisenstein's intent, but without Eisensetin at the editing board, something is missing.

This resulting video is entralling. His incredible shot compositions (which influence me to no end as a film-maker) are all there. There's one scene, which involves a shoot-out reminds us what a John Wayne western directed by Eisenstein would of lookied like.

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2 out of 2 people found the following review useful:
Comparisons to Disney and Orson Welles films, 22 July 2009

Author: fbmorinigo from United States

The general plan of this film is strongly reminiscent of two films that Walt Disney made at the request of the State Department during World War II, namely SALUDOS AMIGOS and THE THREE CABALLEROS. The content here is serious and dramatic, the Disney approach is funny entertainment in cartoon form, but similarities are unmistakable.

It is also my understanding that the U.S. State Department sent Orson Welles to Brazil to make a film. Reels and Reels of film were shot, the funding fathers were not given progress reports that convinced them that anything like they wanted would ever result, and the funding was cut off. The fate of the reels and reels of Welles shot film seems quite similar to what happened to Que Viva Mexico.

As a personal evaluation and comment, I would like to add to what others have written, that I saw nothing in this film that could possibly be construed as blatant propaganda. Great films like CASABLANCA and GONE WITH THE WIND have a strong propaganda element to them, the first one, wartime "Us are Good Guys, Nazis are Bad" and the second one "Slavery and the Ku Klux Klan were the good guys, Dixie and the Old South were just wonderful". QUE VIVA Mexico has less propaganda.

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2 out of 2 people found the following review useful:
A beautiful portrait of Mexico by a Russian genius, 5 May 2009

Author: peqdavid5 from Mexico

It's unbelievable how everything can be art when you look through the eyes of a genius. Sergei Eisenstein: the master of editing, the great father of Russian cinema, a role model for other famous directors like Charlie Chaplin or Andrei Tarkovski; author of cinematic masterpieces like Battleship Potemkin, Ivan the Terrible and Alexander Nevsky. Now we have his version of his Mexican adventure: "Que Viva Mexico!" an epic semi-documentary lost in time. Why was it lost in time for decades? Because no one in Russia or in the USA trusted this film enough to show it. Eisenstein was a nobody when he arrived in the USA to plan another project, the soviet authorities didn't want him in the USSR due to his polemic point of views of the October Revolution and the czarism. Sergei adored Mexico because of its beauty and its hospitality. Famous Mexican painters like Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo and David Alfaro Siqueiros, along with his Russian partner Trotsky, helped him to inspire. Eisenstein filmed his version of the Mexican traditions and he was very close. As a Mexican, I didn't realized how magical these traditions were until I watched this film. A really good film maker knows how to show the real life in a fantastic way. Now, do I have to say the name of this really good film maker? I don't think so, I think you already know. "Que Viva Mexico!" highly recommendable, Mexican fellows: watch it, this is your real country.

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Restoration of a masterpiece, 19 April 2010

Author: Pierre Radulescu from United States

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

1929: Sergei Eisenstein, Grigori Aleksandrov and Eduard Tisse headed West in search for contracts. A short documentary (unfinished) for a German client, then in France their first sound movie (Romance Sentimentale). Nevertheless the target was Hollywood, where Eisenstein would not succeed to find a contract (neither would Leni Riefenstahl, a couple of years later).

After one year, in 1930, Upton Sinclair sponsored the Soviet team for a movie about Mexico. The movie couldn't be finished: lack of more money, lack of more time. The guys went back to Moscow and the filmed material remained at Upton Sinclair.

There are several contradictory versions about what happened and why it happened; anyway, the footage arrived eventually at Moscow, in the seventies. Eisenstein and Tisse were dead by that time. Only Aleksandrov was alive. He restored the material and asked Sergei Bondarchuk to be the narrator: the result was да здравствует Мексика! (¡Que viva México!).

The movie has six episodes: a prologue (Tisse moving slowly the camera over pyramids, Aztec sculptures, motionless people along carved deities, a country that's extremely diverse, where all ages of history coexist, timelessly and motionlessly) - a wedding (in a place where the society is still living in matriarchate) - a religious procession (superb images again: three youngsters carrying the cross, toward three priests like Aztec masks, facing three skulls) - a corrida - a story with three young peasants killed by a landlord and buried alive (Tisse gave here a very shocking image, while one of the most powerful cinematic scenes I have ever seen) - the epilogue (a joyful festival for the All Souls Day, a fabulous celebration of the Dead). A seventh episode was no more shot, Soldaderas, Eisenstein had in mind to focus it on women, the female Revolution soldiers.

The restitution made by Aleksandrov seemed to me very honest - he didn't add anything, and, very important, he didn't edit the film - I'm sure Eisenstein would have put the episodes in parallel like in Griffith's Intolerance; Aleksandrov let them sequential, which was fortunate - one needs the genius of Griffith or Eisenstein to not fail. Only a titan has that power to tell four or five stories in the same time, following their rhythm.

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3 out of 6 people found the following review useful:
How do things result when we apply Russian ideas to Mexico?, 11 September 2007

Author: Lee Eisenberg (eisenberg.lee@gmail.com) from Portland, Oregon, USA

If you know about Sergei Eisenstein's "Que Viva Mexico! - Da zdravstvuyet Meksika!", you probably know that Eisenstein ran out of money and left the movie incomplete, so collaborator Grigoriy Aleksandrov organized the footage as close to how Eisenstein envisioned it. I personally thought that it was a fascinating movie, but one of many films where they throw so much at you that it's really hard to digest.

Knowing that Eisenstein met with the execs at Paramount Pictures but didn't see eye to eye with them, I get the feeling that he may have made this movie in part to indict US involvement in Latin America. As we Americans were supposed to view our southern neighbor as the land of sombreros and senoritas, he wanted to show that there was a more serious-intellectual side, and of course the indigenous aspect.

In my opinion, the combination of the Day of the Dead sequence and the rebellion at the end really constitute the movie's strength, sort of like the rebellion in "Battleship Potemkin". Much of the rest of the film consists of very exaggerated facial expressions (the Russians love those, don't they?). But either way, I still recommend the movie as an important installation in cinematic history, exactly the sort of thing to show in film classes. If anything surprised me, it was that they were allowed to show nudity; I always sort of assume that no major movie in any country was allowed to back then (but don't get me wrong: some of those women were really hot!).

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6 out of 14 people found the following review useful:
Even if it would have been completed, I would bet that it would be considered one of Eisenstein's lesser works. 7/10, 7 May 2001

Author: zetes from Saint Paul, MN

Que Viva Mexico is an interesting (reconstruction of a) film by Sergei Eisenstein, the director of so many masterpieces. In fact, of all that I have seen, this is the only non-masterpiece of the bunch. Even the reconstruction of Beshin Meadow I like more. Que Viva Mexico is a semi-documentary. Most of it is uninteresting and, unlike Eisenstein's other films and Tisse's other cinematography, poorly composed. The only parts of real interest come near the end, with the rebellion, something that Eisenstein was used to creating on screen. There is a great gunfight with a woman participating, a precursor to Alexander Nevsky's Vasilisa, and there is a great scene where some rebels are buried up to the shoulders underground and then trampled by horses (by far the best scene in the film). The Day of the Dead celebration is also very interesting. There is also a bullfight that will demonstrate just how cruel bullfighting is.

I do have to complain about the reconstruction that I watched. This was supposed to be a silent film, I believe. The narration I did not mind, for Eisenstein would have had to find a way to communicate what the narrator did anyway. And the music is good, often great. But I object to the insertion of diagetic sound effects, like guns shooting and horses galloping. This is ridiculous. Obviously the only people who are ever going to see this film are Eisenstein enthusiasts, so to try to sell it to the public as a sound movie is ridiculous. Why?

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