Servando González Fernández was born in Mexico City in 1923. After the death of this father, the young González went to work to help support his family, trying various professions (carpenter, painter, printer), before securing employment in the laboratories of the newly-opened CLASA studios. Beginning as a “gofer” (or, as González said in 1997 interview with Proceso, a “traidor: el que trae la Coca Cola, la torta” [the one who brings the Cokes, the sandwiches]), he progressed through the ranks and at the age of 30 was named head of the Churubusco studio film lab.

However, at this point Servando González left the technical side of films for the creative side: in 1955 he was hired by the ruling political party PRI to make documentaries, and in 1958 became an “official” civil servant as coordinator of the government department of documentaries.

In December 1960, González directed his first feature-length fictional film, Yanco. Because it was made outside of the unions, the picture was considered a “pirate” production and was in danger of being suppressed; however, González utilized his political connections and brought Yanco to the attention of the wife of former president Miguel Alemán, who helped promote it (the picture was also sponsored by Instituto Nacional de Protección a la Infancia). Made on an extremely low budget with amateur performers–Ricardo Ancona was a music student, Jesús Medina was a street musician, and María Bustamante worked in studio cafeteria (she was also the mother of future actress Rosa María Vázquez)–Yanco also marked the debut of cinematographer Alex Phillips Jr., whose father was a well-known director of photography. The screenplay was written by Jesús Marín Bello, a veteran assistant director, who would work with González on a number of his later pictures, as assistant director and/or scripter.

Based (uncredited) on a story by Polish author Henrik Sienkiewicz, Yanco deals with a young indigenous boy who is given violin lessons by an old man; after the man dies, the boy sneaks the violin out each night from the shop where it is for sale, and plays, replacing the instrument before morning. The townspeople think a ghost is responsible for the music they hear.

Yanco received wide international distribution. González did not return to directing until late 1962, when he made a second independent picture, Los mediocres, a multi-story film not released in Mexico City until 1966. The four stories were all set in Mexico City and filmed on location. This time, González did have the benefit of professional actors, including Carlos Ancira, Enrique Lucero, Manuel Arvide, Carolina Barret, and Blanca Sánchez.

González went to the United States for his next project, The Fool Killer, a tale of a young boy in post-Civil War America. Although by Hollywood standards a low-budget, independent “art” film, the picture certainly had a much higher budget than his previous projects and starred well-known actor Anthony Perkins. Alex Phillips Jr. lensed his third consecutive film for González, but the cast contained no Mexican performers (the movie was shot in English and dubbed into Spanish for its Mexican release as El asesino de tontos). Whether González initiated the project or was brought in after it was already on the drawing board, it is likely his work on Yanco was pivotal in securing the job, since both films deal with the relationship between a young boy and an older man (in the case of The Fool Killer, an old man and a younger man).

Returning to Mexico, González made his first film within the regular film industry, Viento negro. This tale of the arduous construction of a railroad through the Mexican desert would be his greatest box-office success, playing 22 weeks in a Mexico City theatre during its first run. The “construction” motif of Viento negro would be repeated by González in Las grandes aguas (a dam) and El último tunel (a railroad and tunnel), with less success.

After the relatively big-budgeted Viento negro, González returned to “personal” filmmaking with El escapulario (an episodic fantasy film) then took what was apparently a director-for-hire job on El hijo pródigo, a Libertad Lamarque melodrama. González subsequently returned to political filmmaking, working for Luis Echevarría during the latter’s presidential campaign, and then (after Echevarría’s inevitable election) becoming head of the president’s film unit. He would not make another fictional film until 1972: De qué color es el viento tells the story of a young blind boy and girl. The boy regains his sight after an operation but, disappointed that his friend is still blind, decides to lose his vision once more (he changes his mind after some good advice). De qué color es el viento was an Estudio Churubusco production–beginning with this picture, the last five directorial efforts of Servando González were all financed by the Mexican government (Churubusco was owned by the government by this time).

El elegido, which dealt with a spectacular Easter pageant and the lives of the performers who appear in it, was one of a number of “art” films produced by the government, in this case the CONACITE DOS agency; Los de abajo, based on a famous novel about the Mexican Revolution, and Las grandes aguas were both CONACINE productions. The latter picture was made in 1978, and González did not get another chance to direct a feature for eight years. El último tunel (financed by IMCINE) was a sequel to his biggest success, Viento negro, but did not pave the way for future projects by the director. After 1986, only received a story credit on the Gabriel Retes film El ciudad al desnudo (1988). González took proposals for several films to IMCINE and the Fondo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes in an attempt to receive funding, but was never able to finance another movie. Servando González died on 4 October 2008 at the age of 85.

Although his 11 feature films encompass a variety of genres and settings–he made almost as many urban films as rural films, period films as contemporary films–a Servando González directorial style can be discerned in many of his efforts. While his films often have realistic settings and characters, with working-class protagonists shown in their homes and jobs, González makes extensive use of unrealistic film techniques (optical effects, attention-getting camera movement and angles, distorted sound and visual effects) in an expressionistic manner. Repeated themes and motifs include the rigors of childhood (Yanco, The Fool Killer, De qué color es el viento particularly, but in other films as well), indigenous people (especially Yanco, Viento negro, Las grandes aguas and El último tunel , and man vs. nature (the construction movies). Rather surprisingly for someone who has worked in the political and governmental sectors, González occasionally casts a critical eye on bureaucracy and officialdom (Los mediocres, El elegido, Viento negro) although this aspect of his pictures is fairly minor and his criticism is not really too pointed.

Feature Film Filmography: as Director unless Noted

1960: Yanco

1962: Los mediocres [The Mediocrities]

1963: The Fool Killer

1964: Viento negro [Black Wind]

1966: El escapulario [The Scapulary]

1968: El hijo pródigo [The Prodigal Son]

1972: De qué color es el viento [What Color is the Wind]

1973: El elegido [The Chosen One]

1976: Los de abajo [The Underdogs]

1978: Las grandes aguas [The Great Waters]

1986: El último tunel [The Last Tunnel]

1988: El ciudad al desnudo [Naked City] story only

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Those who enjoy fantasy films in general, and Mexican fantasy films in particular, must have been pleased to note that this genre fared particularly well at the box-office in 2007. As noted in MFB Vol. 14 #1, four of the top seven most popular Mexican movies were fantasy-oriented: Kilómetro 31, La leyenda de la Nahuala (an animated feature), Hasta el viento tiene miedo, and Cañitas: Presencia. I was able to see all three of the live-action films on this list, and my reviews of them follow.

Kilómetro 31 [Kilometer 31]

Notes: this Mexican-Spanish co-production was by far the top-grossing Mexican film of 2007 (over 3 million tickets sold, 118 million pesos earned–#2 was Niñas mal, which earned 78 million pesos) and it won 5 Ariel Awards (Best Sound, Costumes, Special Effects, Visual Effects, and Makeup), so why don’t I like Kilómetro 31 more than I do? Basically, this is an example of style over substance, and the “style” in this case is too reminiscent of countless recent Hollywood fantasy films (The Grudge, etc.) which in turn were heavily influenced by (or outright remakes of) Japanese fantasy cinema like Ju-on and Ringu. Despite some intriguing hints and clues sprinkled throughout, the plot of Kilómetro 31 is obscure, sketchy, vague, and illogical. The characters are ciphers and the conclusion is confusing at best. I’m always worried that I won’t “get” things in Mexican films due to a language and/or culture gap, but other critics confirm my impressions. However, Km. 31 was undeniably a runaway hit, so these “faults” didn’t matter to 3 million Mexican filmgoers!

One night, near the Kilometer 31 highway marker in the Desierto de Leones area (outside Mexico City), Agata Hameran’s auto strikes a child who suddenly appears on the highway. [The audience can see the "child" looks like a zombie or animated corpse.] When she gets out to render aid, Agata herself is hit by a speeding truck and badly injured.

Agata’s twin sister Catalina, who lives nearby, senses something and races to the accident scene with her boyfriend Nuño. Agata is taken to a hospital, where her legs are amputated; she remains in a coma. The doctor tells Catalina no injured child was found at the Km. 31 scene. Later, Agata’s boyfriend Omar visits Km. 31 to look around. He hears the sound of a child crying and–on the edge of his peripheral vision–a child dashes through the woods. A car stops and the driver–detective Ugalde–says he is investigating the accident and Omar should mind his own business.

Catalina begins to experience odd visions and hear things; she follows a trail of blood from her house to a manhole cover, and hears sobbing and screams from underground. Visiting Agata in the hospital, she hears child-like giggles and feels something touch her back. Agata opens her eyes, but the doctor tells Catalina her sister is still in a deep coma. Catalina informs Nuño she and Agata were orphaned while young: their father was killed in a construction accident and their mother died of an accidental overdose of medicine. (However, a repeated motif of drowning suggests this latter statement might not be true.)

On their way to look for clues at Km. 31, Nuño and Omar argue and their car strikes a pedestrian. Catalina thinks she sees a child in the woods at the spot; Nuño is taken into custody but later released. Detective Ugalde tells him he’s been trying to find the mysterious child at Km. 31 for three years. Catalina and Nuño return to Km. 31 and wander into the woods: an old woman greets them at a run-down house, and tells them a story similar to the Llorona legend. She says Catalina may be able to help resolve the supernatural problem through Agata, who has a link to the “other side.” Nuño and Catalina spend the night in the old house.

Meanwhile, Omar visits Ugalde and reads files of more than two dozen other accidents at Km. 31. Not finding Catalina and Nuño in their house, he goes looking for them in the forest. Passing through a dense fog, Omar spots a ghostly figure standing on the surface of a pool of water. Walking towards the figure, Omar plunges into the pond.

The next day, Catalina and Nuño go home and find the files Omar left, as well as a map of the various incidents. A newspaper article from the 1940s describes the suicide of a woman near Km. 31–the photograph is the woman they met the day before! Driving back to Km. 31, Catalina sees Omar beside the road; he doesn’t speak, but gestures for her to drive to the Km. 31 marker. There, in a ditch beside the road, is Omar’s corpse. Catalina calls the police, then departs. Ugalde and Nuño visit the old woman’s house, but it is now deserted.

In an attempt to psychically solve the mystery, Catalina enters the drainage tunnels beneath the streets via a construction site. Ugalde and Nuño follow. Catalina sees the old woman, the ghost of her mother, and a variety of other supernatural creatures. Nuño arrives: before his eyes, Catalina changes into a monster that he clubs to death. Ugalde appears but only sees Nuño attacking Catalina. Nuño puts the barrel of his gun into his mouth to commit suicide but Ugalde wounds him instead. Later, in the hospital Ugalde says Nuño murdered Catalina. Meanwhile, Agata snaps out of her coma and demands to see her child. As the film concludes, she screams “where is my child!!!!”

Combining snippets of various stories–from the “Phantom Hitchhiker” to the legend of La Llorona–Kilómetro 31 never develops a cohesive plot. The concept of a haunted stretch of highway where numerous fatal accidents occur is good, but this never clearly meshes with the Catalina-Agata backstory, and the final section in the drainage tunnels also seems at odds with the basic premise (after all, the film is called Kilómetro 31 yet the climax occurs nowhere near this spot!).

None of the characters is very well developed. Hints of a conflict between Omar and Nuño are brought up, then dropped (well, Omar gets killed, so that puts an end to it!). Catalina’s relationship with Agata is alluded to–”we’re the same but you’re better at everything” Catalina tells her comatose sister–but the exact circumstances of their mother’s death and what this has to do with the main ghost story are unclear. I’m sorry, I just like a little more structure and logic than Castañeda provides.

The overall visual design of Kilómetro 31 is quite nightmarish, dark and depressing. This is practically a black-and-white film, given the unrelievedly dank, shadowy mise-en-scene. Standard spook-film tricks abound: jump cuts, odd bursts of sound, almost-subliminal images. etc. Not to second-guess the Academia, but while the technical Arieles won by Kilómetro 31 may have been deserved, there’s nothing here that hasn’t been done recently by other medium-budget fantasy films around the world.

The performances are satisfactory, within the limitations of the script. Iliana Fox bears an unfortunate resemblance to Julia-Louis Dreyfuss–unfortunate in the sense that her character’s physical similarity to “Elaine Benes” made it hard to accept her in a dramatic role. Collado and Méndez are fine but not really distinctive, but Carlos Aragón does a fairly good job as the detective in the case.

Perhaps the popularity of Kilómetro 31 caused me to have high expectations and–when these weren’t fulfilled

–my disappointment may have caused me to judge this somewhat harshly. It certainly isn’t a bad movie at all, and in fact is quite slick and stylish overall. But, while it provides reasonable entertainment, it’s also forgettable and derivative and just a little empty.

Trivia notes: despite some objections by the director, Kilómetro 31 was dubbed into “Castilian” Spanish for its release in Spain. There are also rumors that nearly 20 minutes of footage was cut–again, over the objections of the director–which, if true, might have contributed to the incoherent plot.

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