Let's be realistic.

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

The general plan of this film is strongly reminiscent of two films that Walt Disney made at the request of the State Department during World War II, namely SALUDOS AMIGOS and THE THREE CABALLEROS. The content here is serious and dramatic, the Disney approach is funny entertainment in cartoon form, but similarities are unmistakable.It is also my understanding that the U.S. State Department sent Orson Welles to Brazil to make a film. Reels and Reels of film were shot, the funding fathers were not given progress reports that convinced them that anything like they wanted would ever result, and the funding was cut off. The fate of the reels and reels of Welles shot film seems quite similar to what happened to Que Viva Mexico.As a personal evaluation and comment, I would like to add to what others have written, that I saw nothing in this film that could possibly be construed as blatant propaganda. Great films like CASABLANCA and GONE WITH THE WIND have a strong propaganda element to them, the first one, wartime "Us are Good Guys, Nazis are Bad" and the second one "Slavery and the Ku Klux Klan were the good guys, Dixie and the Old South were just wonderful". QUE VIVA Mexico has less propaganda.

It's unbelievable how everything can be art when you look through the eyes of a genius. Sergei Eisenstein: the master of editing, the great father of Russian cinema, a role model for other famous directors like Charlie Chaplin or Andrei Tarkovski; author of cinematic masterpieces like Battleship Potemkin, Ivan the Terrible and Alexander Nevsky. Now we have his version of his Mexican adventure: "Que Viva Mexico!" an epic semi-documentary lost in time. Why was it lost in time for decades? Because no one in Russia or in the USA trusted this film enough to show it. Eisenstein was a nobody when he arrived in the USA to plan another project, the soviet authorities didn't want him in the USSR due to his polemic point of views of the October Revolution and the czarism. Sergei adored Mexico because of its beauty and its hospitality. Famous Mexican painters like Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo and David Alfaro Siqueiros, along with his Russian partner Trotsky, helped him to inspire. Eisenstein filmed his version of the Mexican traditions and he was very close. As a Mexican, I didn't realized how magical these traditions were until I watched this film. A really good film maker knows how to show the real life in a fantastic way. Now, do I have to say the name of this really good film maker? I don't think so, I think you already know. "Que Viva Mexico!" highly recommendable, Mexican fellows: watch it, this is your real country.

I have to start out by saying that i do not give this movie such a high rating based on Eisenstein's vision of the Mexican culture, but more on his amazing ability to manipulate time and space to create a new meaning. He is able to make us believe we are watching a documentary on Mexico when all along we are watching a movie about continuous progress through revolutions (Eisenstein communist vision). He starts his movie with a vision of proclaiming time in the episode Sandunga. Then in the next episode Fiesta he shows us the conquest of Cortes in the 16th century. Next its Maguey which is the dictator of Porfirio Diaz. The following episode is Soldadera (which is when Eisenstein ran out of budget) which is his representation of the 1910-1920 Mexican revolution. Finally, in the prologue he shows us a free Mexico. (He even slips a little of his ideology by representing the capitalists as the "doomed class".)This movie could easily be watched without even noticing this, but i think everyone should try to watch this and keeping in mind Eisenstein bolshevik background. He came to Mexico being financed by a communist writer, and was received by 3 communists mural painters...there was no way this could not be a typical communist, propaganda movie. At some times he represents wrongly Mexicans, but i truly believe its to achieve his main goal, that maybe he even did it on purpose in order to really show an evolution through time...To wrap it up; this movie, and this producer have an enormous and interesting past thats worth looking into to.

Que Viva Mexico is an interesting (reconstruction of a) film by Sergei Eisenstein, the director of so many masterpieces. In fact, of all that I have seen, this is the only non-masterpiece of the bunch. Even the reconstruction of Beshin Meadow I like more. Que Viva Mexico is a semi-documentary. Most of it is uninteresting and, unlike Eisenstein's other films and Tisse's other cinematography, poorly composed. The only parts of real interest come near the end, with the rebellion, something that Eisenstein was used to creating on screen. There is a great gunfight with a woman participating, a precursor to Alexander Nevsky's Vasilisa, and there is a great scene where some rebels are buried up to the shoulders underground and then trampled by horses (by far the best scene in the film). The Day of the Dead celebration is also very interesting. There is also a bullfight that will demonstrate just how cruel bullfighting is. I do have to complain about the reconstruction that I watched. This was supposed to be a silent film, I believe. The narration I did not mind, for Eisenstein would have had to find a way to communicate what the narrator did anyway. And the music is good, often great. But I object to the insertion of diagetic sound effects, like guns shooting and horses galloping. This is ridiculous. Obviously the only people who are ever going to see this film are Eisenstein enthusiasts, so to try to sell it to the public as a sound movie is ridiculous. Why?