A loose interpretation of Fuga, hierro y fuego (Fugue, iron and fire), a novel by Paco Ignacio Taibo I, who was a prominent member of the exiled Spanish community in Mexico. Redondo uses some elements of that story to tackle an openly satirical film, opposed not only to Mexican cinema in general, but conceived, in a sense, as contrary to everything made outside industrial canons, and proud of it. In what turned out to be a pleasant narrative play-off between the colonial past and the turbulent present, as well as between literature and cinema, Busteros’ film portrayed an iconoclastic artist capable of resorting to elements from serials, soap operas and operettas to attack even himself, that is, the sacred figure of the cinematographic author. Right at the worst moment of the crisis that national cinema as a whole was going through, Redondo had the merit of being invited, among others, to two important festivals in Europe: Amiens, France, and Huelva, Spain.

Eduardo de la Vega Alfaro