The story here is as clever as it is simple. Two brothers and a friend hit the road in search of a dying Mexican folk singer who, according to legend, once made Bob Dylan cry with one of his touching ballads. While there are numerous side stories and plenty of character development, the plot doesn't get a whole lot deeper than that, and it is all the better for it. In that sense, the filmmakers knew exactly what they were doing and they achieved it wonderfully.The film has a few flaws, but overall I thought it was pretty good. It could have been shorter, but the pacing is great. I felt like a few of the scenes were added just to ensure a sufficient running time and they could have been cut. One thing I loved about the film was that we never actually hear the music of the fictional Mexican folk singer that the brothers are following. Their car's cassette player is broken so they only ever listen to him via headphones. We are left to watch their silent reactions and fill in the missing pieces for ourselves. I'm not sure if the filmmakers had intended to possibly insert music during post production and then decided against it, but either way it is very effective and well done.Without giving anything away, the ending of the film is right in line with the rest of the film's pacing. It is slow and anticlimactic, but we still end up feeling like everything turned out just the way it should, much like the characters are left feeling. And it is totally hilarious, but in such a dry way that you just might miss it.Despite being a road film in essence, with characters traveling around and getting into adventures, Güeros isn't about story or characters so much as it is about a feeling. It's a feeling that most of us likely experience at some point in our lives, and for that reason most people will be able to relate to this film on some level.

I know this might come out as a little pretentious, but to fully get the movie you've got to be at least acquainted with a little bit of recent Mexican history. The references are funny but well carried out: the University's strike of 1999, the massive concert at Avandaro in the 60s, the Oxxo/K/7eleven (convenience stores) as a place of nocturnal gathering and longing for alcohol, cigarettes and cheap burritos, the high-scale parties crashed by ironic outsiders, Tlatelolco as a locus of the tragic 1985 earthquake--all of these refer, not quite just satirically but neither quite seriously, to essential turning points of the history of Mexico City from the second half of the XXth century on. In a sense, the movie is a road movie--telling the story of the City from the nostalgic perspective of someone who has dwelled at its most intense venues. You get to see the innards of massive department buildings, the zoo, a homeless performing its deliciously enticing, endless discourse on his life, the national university at its more heightened political ventures, downtown, marginal pulquerias (places where pulque, is sold), and the demonstrations at the middle of a high-speed road. There is not much more of a common thread amongst all the scenes apart from looking for an old, decadent hero that personally influenced the main characters; the longing for love, the running away from untold fears. But not much more is needed; if you've ever been on an all-night party at the City, indifferently to your economic background, you'll find yourself reflected in the sequences.

Set in 1999 against a backdrop of student protests, Güeros is a road movie that becomes a voyage of discovery for three rootless young people seeking to bridge the gap between aimlessness and social purpose. The debut feature film by Mexican director Alonso Ruizpalacios received twelve nominations at the 57th Ariel Awards, the Mexican equivalent of the Oscars, winning five of them including Best Film, Best Director, Best First Film, Best Sound, and Best Cinematography (Damian Garcia). Shot in black-and-white, the film is evocative of the French New Wave, balancing highly structured sequences with segments of spontaneous and playful improvisation.In the film, Tomas (Sebastian Aguirre), a disruptive pre-teen in Veracruz is sent by his overburdened mom to Mexico City to live with his brother Federico (Tenoch Huerta), a slacker college student known as Sombra because of his dark skin. Tomas is called a "güeros" because of his lighter complexion underscoring an element of racial conflict in Mexican society. Living with his similarly uninvolved roommate, Santos (Leonardo Ortizgris) in an apartment complex in Copilco that looks as if it's next on the waiting list for demolition, Sombra's position on the student strike is firmly in the middle, saying that he is "on strike against the strike." His daily activity consists of …well, nothing much. He and Santos sit around watching TV by borrowing an electrical cord from a little girl downstairs, an action that does not sit too well with the girl's father.Bored, Tomas decides that a little adventure never hurt anyone and comes up with a plan to find Epigmiento Cruz in order to have him sign their well-worn cassette tape. An enigmatic folk singer from the sixties who their father loved, Cruz is a symbol of something bigger than them,a larger than life hero who can make them see what's behind things. As Sombra says, "If you can see behind things, the only thing they can't take away from you is that feeling." Though the singer is rumored to be sick or dying, little güerito tells Fede that Cruz "once made Bob Dylan cry," presumably an accomplishment worthy of a place in the hall of fame. The trip, according to Ruizpalacios, was inspired by Bob Dylan's journey to visit an ailing Woody Guthrie in the hospital during the late 50s. Shrugging off a panic attack which is carefully explained to him at the hospital, Sombra visits the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) where students are on strike to show their disagreement with the administration's decision to instate an enrollment fee even though the University had always been free. Sombra, Santos, and Tomas walk into an auditorium overflowing with protesters listening to Sombra's former girlfriend Ana (Ilse Salas) speaking in front of the room. The scene is filled with shouting and confrontation, a chaotic depiction not to the liking of some former protesters who complained about the unserious tone of the segment. As Ana joins the trio to look for Cruz, their quest leads them to a pool party where well-to-do intellectuals muse about the sorry state of Mexican cinema.Here the film engages in a sort of self-parody as one director complains that all Mexican movies deliver a picture of impoverished beggars to satisfy Western audiences at film festivals. Sombra also chimes in, saying that Mexicans are often portrayed as cheaters, atheists, prostitutes and alcoholics. Güeros ultimately takes many detours and shifts of perspective but, though it is episodic in structure, never loses its footing as the search for the legendary Epigmiento allows the seekers to move from a place of apathy to one of self-acceptance and commitment.Ruizpalacios describes the film's central theme as "the change from being static to being in movement. Healing through movement." However you interpret Güeros' message, the film has an invigorating appeal: fresh, playful, and meaningful, even suggesting at one point that the seeming randomness of life is guided by divine purpose. Sombra says at one point that "If the world is a train station and the people are the passengers, those who stay at the station and watch the trains go by are the poets, the ones who come and won't go." Tomas is one who watches the trains depart, seeing as we all have once with the innocent eyes of discovery as the city unfolds before his eyes with all its massive contradictions, encompassing the best and worst of humanity.

This movie is black and white and it has a different frame ratio. At first, i thought they were going to do it because they wanted it to look like an art film but if you ask me, from what i watched, i am certain that this was done because of artistic and also satiric reasons. This movie is a great drama and also is a great comedy. Directing is really unique. Movie doesn't treat it's audience like they are stupid people. Movie respects the audience. For example, instead of a broken elevator sign, you see the inside of the elevator and you see that it doesn't come. When the character goes in a dark room, actor isn't pretending to be in a dark room, it is not a low lighted room that you can see but actor can't, you also can't see anything and it feels real. When a character closes other's eyes, before you see that, also your view is blocked by hands on the camera, which is your eyes. You feel like you are inside the film and it is amazingly done. When they listen to the song that should be amazing you hear nothing at all because they want you to imagine it since it will be different for everyone. And there is a scene in the school that it is really really funny and intelligently done. I won't spoil but i was laughing way too much at it. Movie tells a few different stories, panic attack, love, friendship, revolution and a whole other themes that are followed by their own scenes. Every thing in the movie leads somewhere and in every ending, it remind us that the world is cruel.Movie is funny, dramatic and exciting and overall it is very good. It makes fun of the Mexican so called art movies and also that maybe the cause of the black and white colour of the film. And it succeeds to be satiric in a good way. I am giving this 8/10 because i felt like it dragged a little on the last act. But, nonetheless i found it to be very intelligent.