Soviet avant-garde and Latin American film: My two favorite things don't combine that often.  So here's a special thanks to the Morbid Anatomy Museum for screening Sergei Eisenstein's ¡Que viva México! this Sunday. 

In 1930, after failing to secure enough backing for his motion picture projects in the US, which would have marked his entrance into Hollywood, Russian filmmaker Serguéi Eisenstein decided to go for the second best thing in North America, and headed south to Mexico. There, he shot extensively: about 40 hours worth of film. The idea was to produce a movie celebrating Mexico’s violent and diverse history. The title: ¡Que viva México!

Eisenstein would never finish editing the film. All we are left with is a version from 1979, and a legend. Interest in the film, however, has never died. It emerges here and there in the edges of culture, either via a live music project by France’s NLF3 Trio, or used as stock footage for Norway’s Los Plantronics’ video for their song Black Cactus Stampede. 

New York: Oct. 12. Details at the Morbid Anatomy website.