Director Miguel Arteta and cinematographer Chuy Chavez craft an impressive independent entry about Hollywood dreams and dysfunction.
Cinematographer Chuy Chavez hadn't even gone to film school before landing his first feature job, on Gabriel Retes's El Bulto. But it wasn't because the young cameraman didn't believe in formal film training. "I wanted to study at Centro Studio of Cinematography," says the Mexican-born Chavez, "but my application was denied three times in a row." The reason? His father, Gregorio Chavez, was a renowned cinematographer, and the school's admissions committee told the applicant that since he'd grown up in the industry, he didn't need to study it. "They wouldn't let me attend," Chavez says ruefully, "but now they want me to teach there."
El Bulto, a drama about Mexico's political suppression as seen through the eyes of a man who has been asleep for 20 years put Chavez on the map. He followed up with another Retes film, Bienvenido (Welcome), which details the efforts of filmmakers who are trying to make a film about AIDS. Bienvenido won several Ariel Awards (Mexico's equivalent of an Academy Award), including one for Best Cinematography.
Despite the status he achieved in his native country as a result of his Ariel Award, Chavez found subsequent work primarily in other Latin American countries because of the dearth of Mexican film production. "We have no private filmmakers in Mexico," Chavez explains. He says that the government-controlled film industry limits projects to comedies, "which is a problem for filmmakers in my generation. We don't get a chance to work on the kinds of films we'd like to make."
Fox Searchlight's Star Maps, which generated positive buzz at this year's Sundance Film Festival, is Chavez' first American feature. The project teamed him with director Miguel Arteta, a Puerto Rico-born American who has lived in the United States for 17 years. Arteta says that he had always wanted to make "a personal film about the insane world of Hollywood. I wanted to show how extreme this culture really is, from the point of view of people's dreams, expectations and sexual perversions."
The universe portrayed in Star Maps revolves around Carlos, a Los Angeles Latino whose struggle to be a movie star is complicated by a dysfunctional family. The film's other characters are equally troubled, as Arteta points out, "The world around them is so twisted that they have little chance for self-awareness. I felt that the film needed to be larger than life and metaphorical, because it's really about the desperate nature of Hollywood, where everyone is trying to be something they're not. The characters are all yearning for an image of themselves that they haven't yet become, and they're all different people: from poor people from East L.A. to affluent movie industry people from the Palisades. They're struggling with themselves, and the camera always treats them with respect and compassion."
As a Latino artist living in Los Angeles, Arteta might have found it easier to satirize his city and its many social problems, but he opted for a more challenging dramatic path. "I didn't just want to criticize the city," he says. "I wanted to reveal the tragicomic balance that exists, because to me, that is the emotional reality of the people who are comfortable in this culture.
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