Coming from a different culture, one may perceive another as something different to what it really is. It’s a common trait of the Western World, drenching a society in stereotypes that we do not understand correctly.
Mexico is just one of those that even I have perpetuated labels. Colourful somberos and salsa dancing, chiuauas and drug culture are just a few typecasts that stick in your mind when you hear the words Mexico. But in Gerardo Barroso Alcana and Lisa Tillinger’s stella mini documentary, the lives of the country and the epitome of hard work revolves around a small street: Calle Lopez.
Although astutely focusing on the working class of the city, Calle Lopez brings life to the streets and the people who society happily forgets. The focus on these people, the window washers, street salesmen, vendors and more allow insight to lives lived hustling money through sweat and muscle. The idyllic and earnest attempt to create funding is poignant. The struggles and depths of people on screen take centre strange in this rather astute and earnest film that allows the audience onto the streets themselves, following these existances and focuses on their plights.
Symbolic and piteous, the documentary perceives with a tender gaze, these people as people. It does not bombard the few with number and figures because those stats largely take away from the vital narrative of financial crisis. It places faces on the numbers, personalities with the figures and lives with the debates. Damning the governments and those who believe the poor scrounge from the wealth will see the pure hard work to scraps, Calle Lopez allows humanity to be at the focus, and thus creates an important, vital piece of cinema that must be witnessed.
Calle Lopez is showing at Genesis Cinema on 17th of June. Catch it as part of the East End Film Festival, full line up here.