Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Journey to the Ruins of Modernity: Euforia and 40 días

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
The Latin American Road Movie

Part of the book series: Global Cinema ((GLOBALCINE))

Abstract

This chapter builds on an interpretation of Y tu mamá también (Alfonso Cuarón, 2001) as a keen allegory of neoliberal Mexico to focus on Euforia (Alfonso Corona, 2009) and 40 días (Juan Carlos Martín, 2008). In both movies, Sánchez Prado argues, the trope of the journey allows for a navigation of the depths of the neoliberal catastrophe, either by staging, like in Euforia, an impossible romance between two characters that embody irreconcilable ideological stances or, like in 40 días, by charting an uneasy cartography of regional integration. Going against the conventional trope of the road trip as a journey to the interior of either the self or the nation, these films confront the viewer with the profound ideological and aesthetic crisis brought forward by the neoliberal era.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 100.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 119.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 119.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Works Cited

  • 40 días. 2008. Dir. Juan Carlos Martín. Perfs. Héctor Arredondo, Luisa Sáenz, Andrés Almeida. Distrimax, DVD.

    Google Scholar 

  • Acevedo-Muñoz, Ernesto R. 2004. Sex, class and Mexico y Alfonso Cuarón’s Y tu mamá también. Film and History 34(1): 39–48. Print.

    Google Scholar 

  • Aldama, Frederick Luis. 2013. Mex-Ciné. Mexican filmmaking, production and consumption in the twenty-first century. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Print.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Alice in der Städten. 1974. Dir. Wim Wenders. Perfs. Rüdiger Vogler, Yella Rottländer. Zima Entertainment, DVD.

    Google Scholar 

  • Archer, Neil. 2013. The French road movie. Space, mobility, identity. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Print.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ayala Blanco, Jorge. 2011. La justeza del cine mexicano. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Print.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bajo la metralla. 1983. Dir. Felipe Cazals. Perf. Humberto Zurita. Imcine, DVD.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bartra, Roger. 2002. Blood, Ink and Culture. Miseries and Splendors of the Post-Mexican Condition. Trans. Mark Alan Healey. Durham: Duke University Press. Print.

    Google Scholar 

  • Beltrán Félix. 2008. Yerba americana, de Pablo Soler Frost. Letras Libres 119. (November 2008). Web. 11 Feb 2015. http://www.letraslibres.com

  • Bromley, Roger. 2001. From Alice to Buena Vista. The films of Wim Wenders. Westport: Praeger. Print.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brouillette, Sarah. 2014. Literature and the creative economy. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Print.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Cansada de besar sapos. 2006. Dir. Jorge Colón. Perfs. Ana Serradilla, Ana Layevska. Distrimax, DVD.

    Google Scholar 

  • Danzón. 1991. Dir. María Novaro. Perfs. María Rojo, Carmen Salinas, Tito Vasconcelos. Imcine, DVD.

    Google Scholar 

  • Drenaje profundo. 2010–2011. Prods. Benjamín Salinas and Roberto González. Perfs. Elizabeth Cervantes, Ana Serradilla. Distrimax, DVD.

    Google Scholar 

  • Easy rider. 1969. Dir. Dennis Hopper. Perfs. Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper. Columbia Tristar, DVD.

    Google Scholar 

  • El derecho de nacer. 1981–1982. Dir. Raúl Araiza. Perfs. Verónica Castro, Humberto Zurita. Lionsgate, DVD.

    Google Scholar 

  • El tres de copas. 2005. Dir. Felipe Cazals. Perfs. Humberto Zurita, Alejandro Camacho, Gabriela Roel. Desert Mountain Media, DVD.

    Google Scholar 

  • En el aire. 1995. Dir. Juan Carlos de Llaca. Perfs. Daniel Giménez Cacho, Dolores Heredia. Vanguard/ Condor Media, DVD.

    Google Scholar 

  • Eros una vez María. 2007. Dir. Jesús Magaña Vázquez. Perfs. Julio Bracho, Ana Serradilla. Mundo en DVD, DVD.

    Google Scholar 

  • Euforia. 2009. Dir. Alfonso Corona. Perfs. Humberto Zurita, Ana Serradilla. Quality Films, DVD.

    Google Scholar 

  • Falsche Bewewung. 1975. Dir. Wim Wenders. Perfs. Rüdiger Vogler, Hanna Schygulla. Pacific Arts Video, VHS.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fernández, Alvaro A. 2012. El road movie en México: hacia el cronotopo del viaje. In (Re)discovering “America”/ (re)descubriendo “América”. Road movies and other travel narratives in North America, Inter-American studies 6, ed. Wilfred Raussert and Graciela Martínez-Zalce, 187–197. Tempe/Trier: Bilingual Press/Wissenschaftlicher Verlarg. Print.

    Google Scholar 

  • Finnegan, Nuala. 2007. “So what’s Mexico really like?”: Framing the local, negotiating the global in Alfonso Cuarón’s Y tu mamá también. In Contemporary Latin American cinema. Breaking into the global market, ed. Deborah Shaw, 29–50. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield. Print.

    Google Scholar 

  • Flisfeder, Matthew. 2012. The symbolic, the sublime and Slavoj Žižek’s theory of film. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Print.

    Google Scholar 

  • Florida, Richard. 2002. The rise of the creative class … .And how it’s transforming work, leisure, community and everyday life. New York: Basic Books. Print.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goldberg, Paul L. 2013. Reading the road trip in the age of globalization. Travel and place in Pablo Soler Frost’s Yerba americana. Confluencia 28(2): 19–36.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hind, Emily. 2004. Provincia in recent Mexican cinema, 1989–2004. Discourse 26(1–2): 26–45.

    Google Scholar 

  • Huyssen, Andreas. 2010. Authentic ruins. Products of modernity. In Ruins of modernity, ed. Julia Hell and Andreas Schönle, 17–28. Durham: Duke University Press. Print.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Im Lauf der Zeit. 1976. Dir. Wim Wenders. Perfs. Rüdiger Vogler, Hanns Zichler. Pacific Arts Video, VHS.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kerouac, Jack. 1997. On the road. New York: Viking. Print.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kolker, Robert Phillip, and Peter Beicken. 1993. The films of Wim Wenders. Cinema as vision and desire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Print.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kroll, Juli A. 2007. The cinergetic, experimental melodrama: Feminism and neo-machista national consciousness in Mexican film. Studies in Latin American Popular Culture 26: 27–46. Print.

    Google Scholar 

  • Laderman, David. 2002. Driving visions. Exploring the road movie. Austin: University of Texas Press. Print.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lindsay, Claire. 2008. Mobility and modernity in María Novaro’s Sin dejar huella. Framework 49(2): 86–105. Print.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • MacLaird, Misha. 2013. Aesthetics and politics in the Mexican film industry. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Print.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Marinello, Silvestra. 2005. Experience and memory in the films of Wim Wenders. SubStance #106 34(1): 159–179. Print.

    Google Scholar 

  • Morris, Christopher D. 2007. The figure of the road: Deconstructive studies in humanities disciplines. New York: Peter Lang. Print.

    Google Scholar 

  • Oropesa, Salvador. 2008. Proxemics, homogenization and diversity in Mexico’s road movies: Por la libre (2000), Sin dejar huella (2000) and Y tu mamá también (2001). In Latin American cultural production, ed. David William Foster, Hispanic Issues Online 3(5): 92–112. Print.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pelayo, Alejandro. 2012. La generación de la crisis. El cine independiente mexicano de los años ochenta. Mexico: IMCINE. Print.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pérez, Jorge. 2011. Cultural roundabouts. Spanish film and novel on the road. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press. Print.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pinazza, Natália. 2014. Journeys in Argentine and Brazilian cinema. Road films in a global era. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Print.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Por la libre. 2000. Dir. Juan Carlos de Llaca. Perfs. Oswaldo Benavides, Rodrigo Cachero. Twentieth Century Fox, DVD.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sánchez Prado, Ignacio M. 2014. Screening neoliberalism. Transforming Mexican cinema 1988–2012. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press. Print.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sin dejar huella. 2000. Dir. María Novaro. Perfs. Aitana Sánchez Gijón and Tiaré Escanda. Venevisión, DVD.

    Google Scholar 

  • Soler Frost, Pablo. 2008. Yerba americana. Mexico: Era/Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes. Print.

    Google Scholar 

  • Steele, Cynthia. 2003. Siguiendo las huellas de María Novaro. Globalización e identidades fronterizas en Sin dejar huella. In Fronteras de la modernidad en América Latina, ed. Hermann Herlinghaus and Mabel Moraña, 183–192. Pittsburgh: Instituto Internacional de Literatura Iberoamericana. Print.

    Google Scholar 

  • The Straight Story. 1999. Dir. David Lynch. Perfs. Richard Farnsworth, Sissy Spacek. Buena Vista Home Entertainment, DVD.

    Google Scholar 

  • Thelma and Louise. 1991. Dir. Ridley Scott. Perfs. Susan Sarandon, Geena Davis. Pathé Entertainment, DVD.

    Google Scholar 

  • Trigg, Dylan. 2006. The aesthetics of decay. Nothingness, nostalgia and the absence of reason. New York: Peter Lang. Print.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wenders, Wim. 2001. On film. Essays and conversations. London: Faber and Faber. Print.

    Google Scholar 

  • Y tu mamá también. 2001. Dir. Alfonso Cuarón. Perfs. Diego Luna, Gael García Bernal. The Criterion Collection, DVD.

    Google Scholar 

  • Žižek, Slavoj. 2001. Interview with Slavoj Žižek. Y tu mamá también. The Criterion Collection, DVD. Disc 2.

    Google Scholar 

  • Žižek, Slavoj. 2012. Less than nothing. Hegel and the shadow of dialectical materialism. London: Verso. Print.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, Washington University in Saint Louis, Saint Louis, MO, USA

    Ignacio M. Sánchez-Prado

Authors
  1. Ignacio M. Sánchez-Prado
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Spanish, The University of Kansas , Lawrence, Kansas, USA

    Verónica Garibotto

  2. University of Kansas , Lawrence, USA

    Jorge Pérez

Copyright information

© 2016 The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s)

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Sánchez-Prado, I.M. (2016). Journey to the Ruins of Modernity: Euforia and 40 días . In: Garibotto, V., Pérez, J. (eds) The Latin American Road Movie. Global Cinema. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-58093-1_3

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation