Lo “insólito” del melodrama mexicano: el ejemplo de Los insólitos peces gato (Claudia Sainte-Luce, 2013)

Abstract

This article focuses on the formal features of Mexican movie director Claudia Sainte-Luce’s first film, the analysis of which makes it possible to reinterpret the notion of melodrama: a genre now looked down on, while it was once the object of unparalleled enthusiasm in classic Mexican cinema. Referred to as a “cinema of tears,” melodrama, in this particular case, does not merely play with facile stereotypes borrowed from the Hollywood model, or specific to the Mexican context. After a reminder of the generic codes massively accepted during the golden age of melodrama, this essay considers how, in Sainte-Luce’s film, those codes are transgressed from a social, moral and aesthetic point of view. The article examines the obstacles the female Mexican filmmaker had to face for the casting, which holds a mirror up to a still highly prejudiced society. It analyses the way in which the subtle humour that pervades the film is a way of eschewing pre-established patterns in the treatment of a melodramatic theme (protagonists who are victims, stereotyped dramatic conflicts, final resolution…), while at the same time taking up the challenge of transposing on to the screen a story based on the filmmaker’s autobiography. In The Amazing Catfish, thanks to touches of comedy, the telling of a personal episode succeeds in going beyond the (misleading) tragic pattern that could be perceived at the outset, without the melodramatic form appearing degraded.