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Latin Verve

Director Robert Rodriguez tells how he sweated blood to make his debut feature, 'El Mariachi' By Richard von Busack The film El Mariachi is like a cinematic corrido, a song of trouble, a mystical look at the state of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. For the eponymous hero, this ambiguous state means everything from trying to practice mariachi in the age of recorded music, to being mistaken for a guitar caseÐcarrying assassin on a mission of vengeance. Filmed in Ciudad Acuna, Mexico, on the border with Texas, El Mariachi delivers the kind of atmosphere that money can't buy, as well as great stunts, gun fights, a gag about the persistence of miniature Spanish colonial wall sconces, a beautiful, mysterious heroine (Consuelo Gomez) and a natural lead-in to a sequel. This appealing film is being booked in a novel way. Since it's in Spanish with English subtitles, El Mariachi ran at both local English- and Spanish-language theaters, including the Studio and Cine Mexico in San Jose--one small triumph for multiculturalism. The first story you hear about 23-year-old director Robert Rodriguez is how he made El Mariachi for $7,000. He raised part of the money by selling himself for medical experiments. Visiting San Jose, the Austin, TexasÐbased Rodriguez mentions his part-time career as a "lab rat" in passing. "I was in the Research Center for a month. That's where I met Peter Marquardt [who plays the villain, Moco]. He was in the bunk next to mine. While sitting around having blood tests taken, I made $3,000 cash, finished my script and met an actor for my movie. Man! Heaven for young, broke filmmakers!" Rodriguez had originally shot El Mariachi for the direct-to-Mexican-video trade. His plan was to shoot it in 16mm, edit it on video, sell it fast and make the sequel. "In December," he says, "I was in L.A. to try to sell it for $17,000--$10,000 for U.S. rights and $7,000 for Mexican--and they didn't have both contracts ready, and I didn't want to sign one without the other. So while I was waiting, I dropped a copy of the tape at International Creative Management. It's a big agency. I knew they didn't sign people right off the streets; I just wanted an opinion of my work so far." The upshot of this risky move was that Rodriguez was given a two-year contract with Columbia. "Their logo probably cost more than the whole movie," Rodriguez laughs. El Mariachi was entered at several film festivals and won as the audience favorite at Sundance. What he had intended as "a training film" ended up on screen. "It's the best film school you can imagine. Pay $7,000, make a movie all by yourself, and if the film's no good, you can still sell it to the home-video market and make back enough to make two more movies." How do you make a movie for $7,000? Well, it helps to have your own 16mm camera, but Rodriguez and his star, Carlos Gallardo, were also familiar faces in Acu–a. They are old friends from boarding school. "We've been making movies together since high school," Rodriguez says. "During the summers we'd make video action movies in [Carlos'] home town and play them on local TV. Carlos knew the mayor, so it was easy to get the streets closed for the chase scenes." Sadly, the only theater in Acuna is closed, but Rodriguez plans to bus the cast from the town across the river from Del Rio, Texas, to the San Antonio premiere. The secret of Rodriguez's filmmaking is in using what was around him. "We always worked in reverse; we wrote down what we had that looked like it might have some movie production value. Carlos' cousin had a bus [and] we had a motorcycle and a pit bull. We wrote my cousin in, and then we gave him a bigger part, because we liked him so much." Rodriguez has received studio approval on his script for El Mariachi Dos [which was released last month as Desperado], budgeted for $5 million. "It's an enormous amount of money," he admits, "even though it's not much for a movie. Anyway, we'll have more crazy things in it, stunts that Carlos didn't want to do--and more musicians." El Mariachi, directed, written and photographed by Robert Rodriguez and starring Carlos Gallardo and Consuelo Gomez. [ Movies Central | MetroActive ]