Z/Web

Author: Robert Rodriguez

Director: Robert Rodriguez

The DVD of this movie is totally cool — it’s a dual-edition, with Rodriguez’s Desperado on the second side. El Mariachi is essentially Rodriguez’s first film. It’s in Spanish, and amazingly, he filmed it for a paltry $7,000! This is for an action movie, folks! (The sequel, Desperado, cost $7 million!) The DVD has Rodriguez’s audio commentary and it’s terrific if you’re into learning about movie-making. Tons of explanation and hints and tips on making a movie cheaply. (There’s even a separate "10-Minute Film School" video on the DVD.) The commentary begins right at the Columbia Pictures logo, with Rodriguez, with biting wit saying, "This logo probably cost more than my whole movie!" As to the movie itself, it’s not perfect. There are dozens of little flaws, gaffs, and glitches (I think they’re cool). Rodriguez was fully aware of this, a side-effect of the non-existent budget (of the seven grand, he says only six hundred dollars actually shows up on the screen — the rest was used to buy and develop the film). He originally intended to sell the movie to the Spanish language direct-to-video market and basically just hoped to recoup his costs. He was just practicing. Unfortunately, his movie went on to win an award at the Sundance Film Festival and the movie was picked up for wide release by Columbia, so now the whole world gets to see this marvelous film. It’s worth it, too. To compensate for any flaws, Rodriguez edited the movie a frantic pace. There’s cut-cut-cut, zooms, slow- and fast-motion, and the whole movie has an incredible feeling of action though there’s not a single stuntman, crew, or explosion! A lot of this had to do with budget: for instance, Rodriguez couldn’t afford Hollywood prop guns, so he borrowed some real machine guns from the local cops (the movie was film in Mexico). Real guns aren’t designed for blanks, so they jam after one round. This meant no continuing shooting was possible. So Rodriguez would film the shot from multiple angles and zooms and then edit it all together to make it seem like continue action. Turns out the choppy effect is far more dramatic than a guy standing there firing for ten seconds. Basically this movie doesn’t seem low-budget from watching it. It’s a great action movie. The plot’s cool: a mariachi (guitar player) is mistaken for a killer who carries his guns in a guitar case. The mariachi is chased and "accidentally" kills many of the bad guys (like the way Inspect Clousou always does things). It’s funny, exciting, and if you weren’t told how little it cost, you’d never know. You won’t mistake it for a multi-million dollar blockbuster, but it looks better than 90% of the crap that’s shown on cable TV. If you check this out, I highly recommend the DVD version. Besides the invaluable commentary, there’s Rodriguez’s neato movie short, "Bedhead." It apparently won awards and was aired on PBS. It’s the tale of a little girl being tormented by her bratty brother and what she does for revenge. Hilarious! If you’re a Rodriguez fan, you can also check out his ultra-violent From Dusk Till Dawn.