Que viva mexico

!Qué Viva México!: Maguey
Decoupage Analysis

Sergei Eisenstein, Russian director, is known for his devotion to the cinema. Eisenstein is responsible for the film Que Viva Mexico, which wasunfortunately never completed. However, three out the four episodes of this film, one of them being the Maguey episode, were able to be completed. These episodes portray information of the events thatoccurred in Mexico during the time of the Porfirio Díaz regime between 1876 and 1909. The Maguey episode represents a group of peasant’s failed revolt against the economic and social injusticesfostered under Porfirio Diaz regime. Eisenstein emphasizes this depiction of class and race by using his cinema techniques, such as close-ups and the bird’s eye angle.
In the Maguey episode there is alot of aggressiveness, virility, arrogance and austerity and because of the social exploitation that is being implemented against the peasants. In this episode the peasants are buried up to their necksand soldiers on horseback trample on their heads. Just by doing this, Eisenstein created an environment where a social hierarchy is visual, putting the “hacienda” owners or the higher class at thetop and the indigenous peasants or lower class way at the bottom. Eisenstein uses close-ups to capture the feelings of the peasants, something that is not visible in the higher class characters. Thisclose-ups detail the interplay of the victim’s innocent suffering eyes. For example, on shots number 28 and 29 when the peasants are being trampled by the horses there are repeatedly close-ups ofthe peasants’ pain expressions. These repeatedly close-ups that Eisenstein presented can be interpreted as the repeatedly exploitations that caused a lot of harm to peasants during Porfirio Díaz time.Also shot number 25, when the fourth peasant regains consciousness, in time to witness their execution a close-up of the peasant is made again. Horror is seen in his eye with a close-up, and what...