Rudo and
Cursi
This is a film that knows about
serious issues, without taking itself too seriously. Rudo and Cursi are two
hicks from the underdeveloped Mexican hinterland who share a common mother, albeit
with different fathers. The arrival of Baton, a philosophical and opportunistic
talent scout from the capital city, and our narrator, to their home town Tlachatlan,
creates the possibility for them to escape their lives of hard labour on a
banana plantation. However, there’s a problem. Baton can only take one of them
on. How to decide which? It must be a penalty kick, winner take all. And so the
games begin.
Tlachatlan is rich in natural
beauty but poor in monetary terms. “I wish I had a phone so I could ring that
number”, one resident declares wistfully, while watching a television phone-in
quiz program. This kind of insight and background information is consistently
delivered in such an off-hand, incidental, fashion, and is all the more rewarding
for that. As a result, the Rudo and Cursi characters are not primarily
characterised by their impecunious backgrounds, they’re more rounded than that.
The movie’s tone is essentially humorous, and much of this humour is derived
from Rudo and Cursi’s attitudes. In this regard, it’s highly reminiscent of Stuck on You, Dude Where’s My Car, etc.
etc., but with a much more substantial component of realism in its presentation
of life’s admittedly less humorous features, such a maniacal football fans,
drug dealing and poverty.
Not wishing to give too much
away, I’ll just mention the movie’s interesting take on the football sequences.
Their treatment is a stylistic device that works to keep attention focussed on
the players as people first and foremost. Much of the widely perceived facets of
the modern footballer’s existence are in evidence throughout, from the flashy
cars to the model/actress girlfriends, and this would seem to be one of the
film’s main concerns, to remove the mystique from that existence. A more
informative way to say this, on the evidence of what we see here, is that the
filmmakers want to look under the rock where professional football lives, where
bungs and exploitation are commonplace. In a way, Baton’s narration, tending as
it does to draw “life lessons” from various facets of football, serves to remind
us of the more positive and ephemeral aspects of “the beautiful game”, such as
the ideas of teamwork and the phenomenon of the naturally gifted player.
Ultimately, this movie is deeply
rooted in