If you thought the man was frightening, wait til you see the Trump-bot.
There were a lot of frightening absurdities Donald Trump pledged to make frightening realities throughout his campaign, the foremost among them, perhaps, his plans to erect a physical barrier between the United States and Mexico to curb immigration from the latter into the former. The first time I heard him say that, I thought he was being metaphorical, or maybe even trying to be funny (in a racist way), but no, he was and still seems to be completely serious about erecting an actual wall along the U.S. southern border.
In the following short film M.A.M.O.N. (Monitor Against Mexicans Over Nationwide) presented by Aparato, the consequences of this policy are imagined in a fashion that augments just how absurd the new President-Elect’s policies could be. In M.A.M.O.N. legal citizens of Mexican descent are magically transported by the hundreds over the wall back to the land of their birth. When they try to regain entrance to America, again, as legal U.S. citizens, they are met by the wall’s defense systems, which include all sorts of bizarre weapons, one of which is a gigantic and formidable Trump-bot.
If it sounds like Aparato is trying to fight crazy with crazy, they are. M.A.M.O.N. is a delicious slice of dark humor complete with self-depreciating jokes about Mexican stereotypes and cultural institutions, such as the quinceañera, the quetzalcoatl, the lucha libre, the mariachi, the chapulín colorado, and others. From Aparato’s introduction to the film:
M.A.M.O.N. is part of the Wecanfxit project, powered by Uruguayan production house Aparato. Our mission is to change the world using our geeky weapons: cinematography, visual effects and CGI. Our motto: Making the world a better place, one pixel at a time.
Mission accomplished here, I’d say. All three of those facets – cinematography, visual effects and CGI – are in top-form in M.A.M.O.N., and teamed with its tongue-in-cheek, barbed-if-irreverent narrative, the result is a film that makes you laugh uncomfortably while provoking thought about just how close to reality these absurdities could be. If you’re so inclined, share this one around; now that we’ve crossed over the hypothetical into the actual, it’s the kind of film folks need to see.
Related Topics: Politics, Short Films
