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| "IN THE PIT" So this is a little gem of a documentary I was watching during the dull points of the Super Bowl. Luckily it ended before that amazing fourth quarter run of the Giants. In the Pit is an astonishing documentary about Mexican construction workers building a freeway overpass. The camera work is fantastic. They do an extraordinary job of getting high wire shots of the crew as they do manual labor under some extremely hazardous conditions. |
| On the flip side, Rulfo is willing to show these folks as they really are without any kind of artificiality. There is one particular fellow named "El Grande" who is the cynic of the group. He laments how his wallet used to be fat and that he used to be able to afford "the most expensive whores" but now he is stuck working in a concrete dig which he accurately labels the "shit hole". There is a rather comical moment wherein "El Grande" (right, below left) looks like he is about to shit himself as a storm is coming and he realizes that he is about to be covered in mud if he continues to work "in the pit.". |
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| What I found interesting about this documentary was that the director, Juan Carlos Rulfo, gives the Mexican "Joe Blow" a voice. These Mexican workers aren't all that different from the construction workers we see working on our own buildings here in America. They are the grunt workers, minimally educated, and from what I gather from this documentary, not all that together in their own personal lives. They all dream of better lives and really don't know how to go about achieving it. So they work and work and work...And here is the end result... |
| And the end result amounts to anything but a public relation film for the Mexican Male. They spend most of their days taunting each other with mostly gay baiting insults. Uncouth and dumb, they hoot and holler at women who drive by. There is one fellow named "El Guapo" (The Handsome One) that runs around the construction site with a tattered porno magazine in his back pocket. Then they show him running around the bend to get behind some bushes with his magazine in hand...Thankfully the documentarian cut to something else. |
| The most likable member of the construction crew is a guy named "El Chabelo" or "Shorty". He looks to be about 4'10". He doesn't have the same type of bitter resignation that his co-workers have about life. He has what I can only describe as a wistful acceptance about certain things. When asked if he will ever get married, he replies "it's not for me." He says this without self-pity. Then he tries to flag down a couple of cabs after work to drive him home but they all ignore him. He just shrugs it off and walks home without complaint. He is the constant butt of jokes around the site because of filthiness...His pants look like they haven't been washed...Ever...And the co-workers constantly badger him about his body odor (they themselves don't look like they smell all that great so that is really saying something.) On his birthday though his co-workers treat him to a nice party. Mexicans know how to celebrate, there is a cake with candles and a mariachi band serenading "Shorty". He is clearly touched by the attention and generosity given to him. |
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| This is "El Grande"...He really should have been called "El Estupido." |
| "El Grande" who is probably called "Dick Head" by his more visually astute co-workers. |
| "El Grande" comes across as an absolute moron. He admits that one day he had too much to drink and got into a fight with his wife. He says "All of a sudden, punches started being thrown..." Um...yeah. He doesn't seem to work as hard as his co-workers and always appears to have a half-drunk facial expression on his face. He thinks he is waxing philosophical as he tells the camera that in order to succeed in Mexico you have to be corrupt and that being honest only gets you "beans and eggs." We then see him persuading (bribing?) a police officer to let him use a locked bathroom so that he can take a shit. |
| The personable "Shorty" or "El Chabelo" |
| "In The Pit" lost my attention when it focused on the construction of the highway itself and not the human interest stories involved. There are sequences of time lapsed photography that are done to the point of tedium. Then the movie ends with a helicopter shot which allows us to see the entire freeway in its partially constructed state which I thought was a bad way to end things. I wanted to hear what the workers thought lie in their respective futures. Nontheless, I do recommend checking this out as it shows what drudgery and hard labor can do to a person...Some become bitter, some become crazy, but a few like Shorty, just see things "the way it is." |