‘Gods of Mexico’ Is Fine Cinéma, but Don’t Go for the Vérité

Marketed as a documentary, the debut feature by Helmut Dosantos is rife with artifice: Every event seen during the course of the picture has been staged.

Via Oscilloscope Laboratories
A still from ‘Gods of Mexico.’ Via Oscilloscope Laboratories

“Art,” Pablo Picasso stated famously, “is a lie that makes us realize truth.” All art forms, to one degree or another, trade in fiction — that is to say, the shaping of experience through means that are separate from it. Even mediums that seem to promise verisimilitude, such as photography, have long proved susceptible to manipulation, fabulation, and, sometimes, deceit.

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