antiflakflak

I liked this movie because of the juxtaposition of sort of mythological California and the whole mystery surrounding California with the very pragmatic realism that now envelopes modern California. The mythology of California is juxtaposed with the pragmatic reality that has been imposed upon the cultural domain, wherein once upon a time mythology was revered, now the practical has complete dominion and dreaming and capturing a lost mythology is suspect and only madmen contemplate such fanciful non pragmatism. I give this movie a thumbs up.

The lead female characters of the series are definitely embodying Pallas Athene archetypes, that is interesting for Mexican culture, as I understand the women are still behind in the social roles they can aspire to there. In this series Alice Braga, (Brazilian not Mexican) and actual niece of Sonia Braga is given low level crud errands and kept hostage in the cartel of the Number one drug lord in Mexico, only it is his wife's division of the cartel. His wife wants to go solo and run the drug empire her way or the highway and severe rivalry develops with this husband and wife. I guess the series illustrates the severity of the narco drug trafficking culture, shades of Breaking Bad maybe, but coming from the Mexican angle of things. Worth watching, Alice Braga does a good job, characters not bad, and plot keeps you interested to where this will all lead.

Mexican culture is separate from American culture and vastly different but in this series they try too hard to be American, in their style, hairdos, morals, absorption of the narco culture via American influence, what I find about all of this is that it is sad, they have semi assimilated into Americans without questioning anything. That's what this series has made transparently obvious when I watched it. The first lady and president appear to be barbie doll perfect, all the upper echelon Mexicans appear perfect, coiffed and lipsticked to the T, that's not how I remember Mexicans. There's flashes of crowds of Mexicans, and there you see the real Mexico in the crowd. There are too many sex scenes, overdone to adnauseum, they're tiring after a while. There are too many flashbacks throughout the series. It's not necessary, it is just filler. The main characters carry on like Americans, violent,overly dramatic emotional, the characters don't behave pragmatically, rather hysterically all the time. At times it is tedious to watch, cause here we go another flashback, who cares, we've already seen this. If you have nothing better to do with your life watch this series.