Gael García Bernal returns to the crime scene | Culture
On the night of December 24, 1985, Mexico was hit hard. This arrived only three months after the earthquake that shook the Mexican capital. If this was a natural phenomenon, that was a severe setback prompted by two middle class young people who deeply affected the national soul. That Christmas, Ramón Sardina and Carlos Perches Treviño slipped through the air ducts to the National Museum of Anthropology to pocket 143 pieces of the Mayan room. It was an invaluable booty obtained after staining one of the most important cultural centers.
This robbery unleashed a peculiar hunt to what the authorities believed was a cold and professional gang of art thieves. While the police and detectives were mobilizing, the young people fled to try to get rid of very hot material. Al 33 years of that, the story fell into the hands of one of the most interesting filmmakers of the Mexican scene, Alonso Ruizpalacios (Güeros, 2014). Museum, his second feature film, recreates the theft to Anthropology and, incidentally, serves as a reflection on the Mexico of those years.
THE COUNTRY visited the Museum of Anthropology, the crime scene more than three decades ago, to talk to Gael Garcia Bernal, one of the protagonists of this film with Ilse Salas, Leonardo Ortizgris, Lisa Owen and Alfredo Castro. The filming allowed the Mexican actor to meet for the first time the ruins of Palenque, in the State of Chiapas, and the port of Acapulco, a stopover on the crazy route taken by thieves to sell their treasures. García Bernal must have understood the charm that seized Carlos Perches to snatch the mask of King Pakal. And he learned enough to give an impromptu archeology class to this newspaper.
