Why Are Mexican Directors in Love with Canoa?

Horror film, sociopolitical documentary, thriller, historical reconstruction, all wrapped up in non-linear storytelling. This is how Alfonso Cuarón tries to explain all the pieces at play in Felipe Cazals' Canoa: A Shameful Memory. The 1976 Mexican film is, as you can see, hard to describe. And that's only the form. When you go down into the content, things get more complex.

The film is a cornerstone of Mexican cinema. Incredibly well-regarded in its time, beloved by the famous directors working today. And, for me, one of those perennial films to watch someday.

Several years ago, I tried to watch it for the first time. I was aware, in the vaguest sense, of its reputation. I expected an experience that would shake me to my core. I knew what it was about: the lynching of innocent people in a small town. I expected fear, thrill; I wanted to feel the dread of the victims, and to be disgusted by the actions of the perpetrators. Basically, I wanted to be pulled into the story.

Forty minutes later, I stopped the movie and went outside. I wasn't shocked or moved, I didn't need a break to process what I was watching. I was bored and alienated.

I didn't try again.

It felt like a defeat. In any way you think about it, in any metric you want to use to measure it, Canoa is a must-see. Especially for a Mexican who claims wants to be a screenwriter, it shouldn't even be an issue. But at first, I felt that, as time goes by, its importance was becoming academic, historical. When a movie reaches that stage, at least for me, interest wanes. It's no longer alive, it's archive. Time and reputation raise the entry barrier; so, after a while, it becomes even harder to bring yourself to actually sit down and watch the movie.

Canoa was always in the back of my mind, a shameful reminder of something I wasn't smart enough to get. Honestly, my relationship with this movie could have stayed like that forever, but something clicked a couple weeks ago. I was reading the first person account of a young reporter sent to a small town in Puebla, Mexico. He was there to write about the lyching of a kidnapper a few days earlier. As soon as the reporter gets there, people from town notice him. They gossip about him. They text his location, what he's doing, where he comes from. What they don't kow, they make up. In minutes, he's no longer a reporter; in their eyes, he's a criminal, a kidnapper. The tight-knit community closes around him. Just because he's there, they're gonna kill him. They're gonna cut his gut open with a knife. They're gonna burn him alive. Fortunately, they let him go in the end. But that's not always the case when things like that happen.

The article is from 2025. Almost 50 years after Canoa came out, almost 60 years since the real massacre in the town of San Miguel Canoa. The account from the young reporter even references the film. The events in Canoa are still a reality today. For many reasons, lynch mobs are common in Puebla. Most of the time, they're not lethal, but when they are, they highlight the horrific nature of mob mentality, and the hundreds of social and historical reasons behind them. In 2023, for instance, a 23-year-old man was burned alive after, allegedly, stealing some broccoli because he was hungry. This has been going on for decades, probably longer and we just don't have records for it.

After reading that article, I knew I was mistaken. Canoa isn't just archive, it is alive. The article was a chance to redeem myself, so I knew there was no better time to watch it.

During

The film opens by asserting: esto sí pasó—this actually happened. As if it has to double down on its own reality. On the dawn of September 15th, 1968, just hours after the massacre, a reporter transcribes the story from a phone call. Without context, the names of the victims don't mean much.

Then it cuts to the next day, September 16th, 1968. Students and workers from the university carry the coffins of the murdered men through the streets of Puebla in protest. But it’s also the day after Independence Day. So, at the same time, on the same streets, the Army parades. When the two groups cross paths, they don’t confront each other, but the tension is palpable.

The opening credits roll over black-and-white reenactments of the aftermath of the lynching. Dead bodies lie on the street. The army steps in, trying to regain control.

Then, in a complete change of pace, we get a documentary-style introduction to San Miguel Canoa. A voice-over tells us about the town’s peaceful life, its devout population, and the vital role of Father Meza. The voice sounds detached, official, paternalistic, in a way. The images contradict the narration: barren fields, empty streets.

Then we meet a farmer who turns to the camera and says: no, the land isn’t fertile. No, the schools don’t work. People drop out. He becomes our guide, speaking directly to us as a witness. His voice breaks the illusion. Through him, we learn how Father Meza controls the town, not just spiritually, but economically and politically. He charges for services, dictates local decisions, and demands obedience. Throughout the film, this witness will work as a counterpoint to the more official narration, as our "friend," giving us real insight into what's going on.

The town lives in poverty and isolation. Over the past months, Father Meza has been spreading fear among the townspeople. He tells them the communists are coming to town, to kill him, to rape the women, to raise the black and red flags.

At this point, it's important to understand that 1968 is one of the most politically active and violent years in modern Mexican history. The student's movement, which had been going strong throughout the country for months, was in open defiance of the federal government. In turn, the State labels them communists, terrorists even the same as Father Meza does in his little village. Just two weeks after the massacre in Canoa, the October 2nd Tlatelolco Massacre took place, where hundreds of students were killed by the Mexican Army. It's impossible to synthesize in a few lines how important this moment was in history, or what the atmosphere was at the time, but this political undercurrent is always present throughout the film.

So when five university workers arrive to camp on the nearby volcano, rumors spread. Fueled by anticommunist paranoia, the villagers believe the men are revolutionaries sent to kill the priest and defile their way of life. Little by little, a mob starts gathering. The victims are not aware the mob is there because of them; they don't even think about the possibility at first.

As the mob approaches the house where the victims are, we jump again to September 16th, two days after the massacre. Father Meza walks alone on the country, he wears a pristine black suit and tie, and his iconic sunglasses. He speaks to the camera. He says he didn't have anything to do with what happened, he even tried to stop it. It feels like he's being interrogated by us, but he keeps his cool, he's untouchable and he knows it.

We go back to the night of the lynching. The villagers get into the house, in a few seconds, they go from shouting and taunting to attacking the university workers. The villagers hit them with sticks, they cut them into pieces with machetes. For 15 minutes, they drag them across the muddy streets. It's chaos, it's hard to tell who is still alive. Then, just in time, the Army shows up. The survivors are taken to the hospital.

On September 29th, two weeks after the massacre, the village celebrates Saint Michael's day. There's dancing, partying, kids playing around. Father Meza officiates another mass. This time, a big statue of Saint Michael, the angel who defeats Satan, is right there next to him.

During the celebration, the camera runs into the witness. He tells us that the town has to come up with some money to patch things up with the government after the massacre, so the priest's people are going door to door collecting. "Things were bad, now they're worse," he says.

In the end, a text tells us that none of the intellectual perpetrators went to jail, or were even processed.

After

Don't get me wrong, what alienated me the first time was still there, but this time I was making an effort to understand the movie. This meant I had to go looking into what had made the film so big in the first place.

In general terms, the film aims to be a truthful reconstruction of what happened that night. Maybe even to a fault. Director Felipe Cazals and screenwriter Tomás Pérez Turrent went around interviewing witnesses, survivors and perpetrators in 1974.

Everything the witness says, for example, was taken word for word from his testimony. They met Father Meza, who threatened them with a gun. During filming, Cazals made sure to bring in survivors so the actors would know exactly what they said, where they were standing, how they were feeling.

This obsession with being testimonial is the reason the film is not just a social critique. It takes into account what everyone involved said they did during the massacre. For example, Meza is never shown with the mob, as he says he was sick during what happened. It's hard to tell exactly who is alive at the end, because the official sources were conflicting, and the survivors didn't know what was going on. The film is memory, a collective memory, which is hazy by necessity.

The obsession goes even further into the way the film was shot. Cazals made sure to treat the camera like a witness without bringing attention to it. That's why most shots are static, with long scenes without cuts, no emphasis on anything. The idea is to let the story take its course and just relate it as a synthesis of testimonies, not to give a personalized account.

Cazals wanted to create as much distance as he could between the espectator and the story. In that brechtian distancing, he wanted to make sure the spectators had enough space to reflect and analyze. That's also the reason the characters are not developed in a traditional sense. They're just names, thrown into a situation. But we don't need their story to understand what's going on with them, and we don't need to want them to succeed. We already know they're going to die. We need to understand why, and how it could happen again.

These creative choices are there for a reason. The script, based on hard, cold facts; the camera, meant to be as boring and uneventful as possible. They push the audience into a place of observation, not connection.

Intellectualy, I knew what I was supposed to see and take from the movie. And it was there, and it was admirable. But, as part of the audience, it's hard to get into it. But I'm not part of the generation this film was made for; my sensibilities are different, my expectations too.

Its influence is easier to see on the some of the older filmmakers working today. Just listen to the way Guillermo Del Toro talks about it. Canoa is a complete transformation from the Golden Age of Mexican Cinema, both in form and content. Even if that was decades earlier, its influence was still felt.

The narrative structure, the almost documentary-like fidelity to the facts, the fact that the priest is the antagonist manipulating the town. Years earlier, that would have been unthinkable.

If Alfonso Cuarón is more your speed, here he is interviewing director Felipe Cazals on the 40th anniversary of Canoa. Here, the influence on the younger director is a lot more evident. For instance, Cuarón has said many times that the narrator in Y Tu Mamá También is directly influenced by the opening narration in Canoa. Cuarón analyzes every aspect of the film, from its inception, to the lack of music, to camera choices, to its reception.

The list of directors that were inspired by this movie is long. It's easy to see why, as long as you are willing to. Because not all important movies are enjoyable. Because some films are meant to leave you uneasy, frustrated, unsure. Canoa isn’t trying to move you, it’s trying to show you something ugly, something deeply rooted in Mexican history and psychology. I'm still not sure I "liked" it, but I'm glad I watched it. Finally.