How Long Is “Drama/Mex”?

For his sophomore effort, Drama/Mex, writer-director Gerardo Naranjo (Malachance) juxtaposes three back-to-back stories, set in the once lush and exclusive - now over-commercialized and garish - resort town of Acapulco, over the course of the same long, hot night. Naranjo mounts an experimental narrative structure, with each successive tale set backward in time just prior to the end of the last story - a "relay-style" structural experimentation that mirrors and recalls Fernando Mereilles's City of God). The first tale involves a thief Chano (Emilio Valdés who crops up and threatens the sanctity of ex-girlfriend Fernanda's (Diana García) relationship with Gonzalo (Juan Pablo Castañeda), even breaking into her house to win her back. In the second story, someone tips Gonzalo off that Fernanda has been seen kissing Chano in a crowded restaurant. In desperation, Gonzalo hires a mariachi band and serenades Fernanda outside of her house. The third tale concerns Jaime (Fernando Becerril) who, after lifting the company payroll and using part of it to rent a beachfront property, contemplates suicide - until a relationship with an equally dishonest fifteen-year-old runway and scam artist, Tigrillo (Miriana Moro) grants him a new lease on life.