Take a tip from Tenoch and Julio — the movie’s main characters — and explore Mexico’s pristine Pacific coast by car. You won’t find Heaven’s Mouth, but you will find Huatulco and Puerto Escondido, both featured in the film. To get to Huatulco from the capital takes about 10 hours by car, or a 1-hour flight, but the southwest drive offers the chance to see the “real” Mexico depicted in the film.

At the end of your drive you’ll reach the resorts of Huatulco, centered around nine beautiful bays. As a Fondo Nacional de Fomento al Turismo project, much of the area — including four bays — have been designated as ecological preserves.
 

While you could spend your entire stay in Huatulco soaking up the natural beauty of this tropical paradise, don’t forget that Oaxaca is a great place to sample Mexican culture, crafts and cuisine. In fact, the state is known as “the land of seven moles” because of the wide variety of flavors brought by its diverse inhabitants.

Huatulco

Puerto Escondido is perhaps the better-known of the towns in the film, and it can be reached by a 12-hour bus ride from Mexico City, with a stop in Acapulco. If you’re brave enough to do the drive yourself, be warned, the roads from Acapulco and Oaxaca are serpentine and narrow, cutting through the isolated Western Sierra Madre.

 
Puerto Escondido is known for its big waves and great surfing, so be sure to stop by Playa Zicatela to catch some waves. Don’t know how to surf? Then take a lesson or just sit back with a beer and watch the pros. The town is a traditional fishing village, so there is plenty of fresh and delicious seafood. 

The city also has a reputation as a bit of a hippie getaway. Oaxaca has a long tradition of shamanism, and is home to two famous psychedelics — Psilocybe mushrooms and Salvia divornum. Rumor has it that in the 1960s, rock stars like Bob Dylan and John Lennon would come to Oaxaca to meet its most famous shaman, María Sabina.

photo: iStock

So we’ll admit we get a late pass on this one, but when we came across this story in May’s  Modern Painters, we couldn’t help but share it. The exhibitions are over, but there’s still great stuff on the web — including the magazine’s interview with the shows’ curators. After all, film and travel are what we love here at Museyon…

Here’s the backstory: In 1930, Eisenstein was invited by some Hollywood bigwigs to come to the U.S. to shoot a film. Unable to deal with their demands, Eisenstein joined forces with writer Upton Sinclair and went to Mexico to film ¡Que viva México! his epic episodic history of Mexico. He never got a chance to finish what many consider to be his greatest work. But while in Mexico, he started running with the cool crowd — painters like Frida Kahlo and the famed “Mexican muralists” Diego Rivera, Jose Orozco and David Siqueiros – and had a creative awakening.

The film has made its way online, in an edited version believed to be close to what the director had originally intended. After an intro from Eisenstein’s assistant on the trip, the director Grigory Alexandrov, it stats at the 5-minute mark:

In Museyon’s guide to Film + Travel, Enrique Ramirez is your guide to Mexico City. Join him as he explores the same streets that so inspired Eisenstein, including a stop Casa Azul, at the home of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera. Today, it’s the Museo Frida Kahlo.

Image: Sergei Eisenstein, ¡Que viva México!, 1932. Courtesy Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst Antwerpen.

Mexico City is a city on the brink. A new power player in media, the Mexican capital plays host to Mexican, America and European film crews hoping to capture its vibrant beauty and rich history. Tour the city’s distinct neighborhoods with Enrique Ramirez for glimpses of Mexican cinema’s past, and its future. Stop by the offices of Canana Film, the production company founded by two of Mexico’s hottest young actors, Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna. Then visit Estudios Churubusco, one of North America’s most revered, and longest-operating, studios, and home to Julie Traymor’s Frida, Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet and James Cameron’s Titanic.

About Your Guide: Enrique Ramirez is an architectural historian who writes about cities and film.

photo: iStock