My alarm goes off entirely too early. I get up and after a quick shower, I wander down to the press room where I see Roger Koch. Koch is the publicist who invited me down to Mexico, whom I’ve met a number of times before… and who doesn’t recognize me today. I also meet his assistant, Rachel Keaton. We chat for a few minutes and I am introduced to a woman named Lisa whom I later learn spells her name with a ‘Y’ instead of an ‘I’ (Lysa).
There is a filmmaker panel that is commencing at noon. Somebody introduces me to Gabriel Figeroa, who is there to do the panel. This is unique because, as I later learn, Figeroa is actually dead. I'm still not sure who the guy was that I was introduced to. I shake the man's hand graciously and nod courteously at his wife who is standing next to him. When he is out of earshot, I turn to Rachel and ask, “Who is that guy?” He did something with The Night of the Iguana,” Rachel tells me. “What’s that?” I ask. She smiles sheepishly not really knowing and says, “You’re the film guy.”
It was William Goldman who famously said, “Nobody knows anything” and it is an axiom that is put to the test in Puerto Vallarta. Adjusting to the lack of punctuality and the ever and forever changing nature of events and things is by far the hardest thing I will have to overcome while in there.
I bail on the filmmaking panel quickly. A lot of local (read: Spanish speaking) press is present and I don’t speak a lick of Spanish. I later prove this by asking a fellow journalist what a Spanish word next to the number 14 in the Puerto Vallarta Film Festival program is. In between fits of laughter, the man says, “That’s ‘Saturday’.”
After a leisurely breakfast of pineapple at the Sheraton’s restaurant, I spend my morning trying to stay in the shade around the pool. It’s hot and there is little wind. I type some on my laptop before heading to the Sheraton’s lobby to meet the festival planners for lunch. We have a schedule that we are supposed to follow and lunch is scheduled at 1:30. It’s my first day, so I get there a little early, to ensure that it’s all good. I park myself in an easy chair in the lobby at 1:25. Nobody else shows until 1:45. The two guys from NY One’s news team, Peter and Darius, say hello. 2:00 comes and goes before the rest of the festival staff and publicity team shows. “Mexican Time,” they explain, attempting to put a reason to their tardiness.
The trouble with Mexican Time though is that no one is ever sure how late someone will be. It could be five minutes, it could be an hour. Yet, if you’re the one who is late, you suddenly become the asshole (though it’s tough to be late when there is no ‘on-time’). In short, whenever you show up is fine, just so long as you’re not the last person to arrive. As a result of this, I am always twenty minutes early to almost every event I attend, even though I show up precisely when I’m supposed to.
I find out how wide-spread Mexican Time is later in the day on the way to see director Alfonso Cuaron’s sophomore effort, Love in the Time of Hysteria. The film is playing at the Versalles Theaters, which is a quick four or five minutes journey by bus from the hotel. Though Cuaron is going to be present and the event is advertised around town as starting at 7:00PM, the festival press and planners don’t leave our hotel for the screening until roughly quarter after seven. Nobody else seems particularly worried about this. I try to go with the flow, but am also somewhat interested in seeing Cuaron speak. Luis Mandoki I can miss, Cuaron I want to see. When we arrive at the theater at 7:30, we get the news that no one has begun filing into the theater yet. Though Cuaron is present, chatting with people in the lobby, he has made no effort to direct people into the theater.
In Mexico, apparently, a 7:00 PM showing is a broad suggestion of when, possibly, a screening might begin. In this respect, Mexican Time also seems to apply, in principle, to stop signs and other rules of the road as well. Taking a cab home from an event earlier in the day, I am struck by the fact that absolutely no one stops at any of the stop signs. There will be a four-way intersection with each direction getting a stop sign and all four cars will barrel into the intersection intent on being the first one through. I am adding bumper cars to my Manhattan-like traffic theory,
When my lunch companions all finally arrive in the lobby, we head to a little local spot, Archie’s Wok. Archie’s was started a number of years back by director John Huston’s personal chef. The cuisine is deigned pan-Asian and is like no other food I’ve eaten. It is delightful, light, delectably cooked and tastes fantastic. It also features a superb chicken like none other that I’ve had. I suppose it also helps that I haven’t really eaten in about three days.
The trip to Archie’s itself is an adventure. Though the roads in Puerto Vallarta seem designed for two lanes of cars, there are no lane lines painted on the cobblestone street. The result is a weird sort of chaos with people making their own lanes. I am in the back of a cramped cab with a bulgy, balding, blonde-haired man in blue sweatpants, named Jeffrey, and another publicist, Allison. Before I have a chance to introduce myself to either person, Jeffrey has pulled out his cell-phone and is loudly making calls to people back in LA, asking them to work as waiters for a party at Adam Sandler’s house that he is catering. It is impossible not to know this because Adam’s name is mentioned in every other sentence. Puerto Vallarta’s cell service isn’t great though and Allison and I are forced to live through a set of very loud, “Can you hear me nows?” I tell Jeffrey that I can hear him just fine, but it doesn’t change his demeanor… or volume. After winding through the narrow streets of Puerto Vallerta’s downtown, we finally arrive at Archie’s.
I sit opposite Peter and Darius and next to Allison at a long table with about 10 of us. The choice of appetizers and entrees has been chosen for us and we wile away the time talking. Peter and Darius are obviously not publicists or from LA; they say what they feel and don’t shy away from criticizing anything. I break the ice by asking the NY boys if they’re still upset about the Yankees losing to the Red Sox with a 3-0 lead. “Hell no,” Peter says, “I’m fucking upset about Kerry losing the election. What kind of bullshit is that?”
In contrast, when I ask the publicist, Lysa, which movies she is looking forward to seeing, she answers, “All of them. They’re all amazing.”
In his late 30’s, with thinning brown hair, Peter is a dead ringer for a shorter Tommy Lee Jones. In his mid-20’s, Darius is Peter’s cousin once removed or second cousin. They had figured it out earlier in the week, but can’t remember any more.
After lunch ends, I am, according to the schedule, supposed to see a choice of movies including one called Trash. I have yet to see any of the city and when I learn that Peter and Darius are going to be walking around looking for locations to shoot for B-roll footage, I ask if I can tag along with them. I can’t justify spending a sunny afternoon inside watching something called “Trash”. “Sure,” Peter says with gusto. “We’d love to have you come with.”
Our first stop is the beach. We head out onto a nearby pier so Peter and Darius can shoot some footage of the beach. At the end of the pier, we meet a Mexican father and son who are fishing, and who don’t speak a single word of English. This doesn’t stop Peter from trying to talk to them. Through a combination of pantomime and pointing, Peter gets the man to swing his fishing line (no pole, mind you, just fishing line wrapped around his hands) far out into the water for the camera. Darius fails to get the shot and Peter has the man do it again. A blue-footed booby flies in and nearly hits Peter in the head.
After the pier shoot, we head into town and off some of the more touristy strips. Senor Frogs and the other frat boy locations are behind us. We happen on a collection of vendors selling knick-knacks. Peter has purchased a couple of hand-woven Mexican blankets earlier during his trip for $20 apiece outside the hotel. He is instantly disgusted to learn that he could have had the blankets for less. He attempts to talk the vendors down to 120 pesos ($12 dollars) not because he wants the blankets but because he wants a good deal. Getting no lower than 150 pesos, we start walking. After wandering away from the ocean for a number of blocks and making a number of turns, Darius finally asks, “Is any one keeping track of where we are?” I am by default. We’ve only made a couple of turns and I can still see the ocean. It’s good enough for us.
Peter and Darius stop to shoot footage every so often, but are both somewhat disappointed that they haven’t had gotten the opportunity to shoot the outdoor theater that they were at the night before. After more meandering, crossing some suspension bridges with a strange penchant for rocking back and forth wildly, the three of us stumble onto the outdoor venue that Peter and Darius wanted to shoot. It’s a stroke of luck and Peter and Darius take full advantage of it, shooting the scene from an assortment of different angles.
While they are shooting, I duck into a nearby restaurant to use the bathroom. The bathroom is separated from the dining room by a pair of swinging doors, much like you would expect to see on a saloon in the old west. One of the doors is hanging off its hinges, completely useless. It is so bad, I take a picture of it. This is the first bathroom I use outside of the Sheraton and I haven’t yet learned that this is a decent bathroom in Puerto Vallarta. The next day I end up using a toilet that doesn’t have any water in the tank that is also missing the door that separates it from the dining area. Later I am forced to pee into a sink because the toilet in that bathroom isn't connected to anything--it's possible the building didn't have plumbing--and also use a bathroom that is separated from the dining room by a see-through shower curtain.
The outdoor venue is decidedly rustic and unique. It is also home to more wild cats than you can imagine. I started counting the cats I could see but gave up after I reached number 20. The cats themselves are mangy, scrawny, flea-bitten cats that are the feline equivalent of the Mexican cars I’ve been seeing. Peter bends to pet one before quickly pulling back his hand when he sees a series of open wounds on the base of the cat’s tail.
“I guess you probably shouldn’t go around messing with Mexican pussies,” I say, drawing loud laughter out of the two from the easy joke.
After more walking, we finally hail a cab in order to get back to the Sheraton in time to go see the evening’s movie. When we hop into the first taxi that pulls up, Peter tells the driver to take the tunnel. It’s what Allison told us to say. The driver turns around in his seat, looks at Peter and asks, “How else would I get there at this time of day?”
The tunnel is nothing like any I’ve encountered in the United States. For starters, there is no ventilation. As we penetrate the mountain, through which the tunnel passes, the temperature instantly shoots up thirty degrees. It gets hard to breathe and the traffic slows monumentally. The tunnel is maybe half a mile long and it doesn’t take more than four minutes to get through it. After a series of weird 30 degree turns (not just one, but several) and blowing through no less than three stop signs, we pull up to the Sheraton and get out.
A quick shower and change of clothes later and I head down to the lobby with Darius. We have strict instructions from Lisa with a ‘Y’ not to be in the lobby any later than 6:30. Naturally, we arrive at 6:30 and don’t see anyone else for another fifteen minutes.
The theater turns out to be no more than a couple of blocks from the hotel; we could easily have walked in eight minutes or so. My introduction to Mexican cinema was watching several teenage girls happily plunking down their hard earned pesos to see… The Wayans brothers’ White Chicks. The movie is called Where Are the Blondes? for its Mexican release for reasons that are unclear to anyone.
After waiting around in the lobby of the movie theater for twenty minutes, we finally enter the theater. The nature of Mexican Time seems to be that everything you do is something that you end up “finally” doing. Any time I look around and ask myself, “What are we waiting for?” I realize Mexican Time has reared its ugly head again.
The Versalles theater is the kind of theater that was built in spades in America during the late ’70s and early ‘80s. There are roughly twenty rows of stadium style seating in the theater where all but the top three rows or so are entirely too close to the screen. The aisle roped off for the press and festival staff is the fourth row from the front. It’s so close that I actually have to turn my head left and right to read the English subtitles.
After a few minutes, Cuaron steps into the theater to introduce the film. In Spanish. He talks for about five minutes and waves good bye. The film then begins immediately. I am only slightly upset that I can’t see some trailers for the Mexican releases of Catwoman and King Arthur.
Two hours later the movie ends. I turn to Patrick Hardell, the recently arrived Canadian (who lives in LA) who free lances for the Globe and Mail in Toronto and ask him, “Is there a scene missing? Did I miss something there?” Peter and Darius approach Patrick and I and Darius asks, “I can’t be the only one who really hated that, can I?”
