Museums and Movies

After living in Mexico City for nearly 10 months (of which I admittedly spent 3 on trips back to the U.S.), I am a bit embarrassed to confess that I had never been to the world renowned Museo Nacional de Antropologia (National Museum of Anthropology), even though it is only six blocks from my apartment. So on Friday I joined some of my fellow Newcomers members and our wonderful tour guide, Lynda, on a tour of the museum. To give you an idea of how big it is, we spent four hours there and covered about one fourth of the museum, stopping to see only those exhibits that would help us understand the history and native culture of the pre-Hispanic people living in what is now known as the Mexico City area. That means that there is still left for future tours the history and culture of the indigenous people of five other areas of Mesoamerica, as well as an entire floor on the culture of indigenous descendants currently living in various parts of Mexico.

To be quite frank, I had never much cared about the history of MesoAmerica, not being of Latin American descent, and only having focused on Egyptian and European history in school. Now that I am living here, though, I find myself a lot more interested in Mexican history and fascinated by the various cultures of different geographical areas of Mexico. I suppose it is only natural - and I have to say that our informative and entertaining tour of a quarter of the museum has left me feeling a lot more connected to this city, and with a better appreciation for the symbols and art I see all around me, from the flag to the currency to the murals throughout the city.

After my knowledge-enhancing morning, I was left pretty exhausted (standing around for four hours without having consumed breakfast or that all-important morning coffee, because I was running late as usual, can do that to a person). So when Sonny returned from his week-long business trip to Puerto Vallarta (probably feeling a bit guilty at having had so much fun without me) and offered to take me to a movie that night, I jumped at the chance.

Anyone who has read his post The Luxuries of Mexico City knows that Sonny will no longer sit in a regular section of the movies in Mexico (hating going to the movies anyway, he’ll be damned if he can’t use that ten bucks to get in a good two hours’ nap). One of the consequences of sitting in the VIP section though - aside from the annoying “waitresses” that are constantly delivering food/beverages during the show - is that there are significantly fewer seats than a normal theater. For us this meant that our first choice was sold out, and we ended up seeing “No Country for Old Men.”

While the critics gave it great reviews, and the MPA nominated it for an Oscar, I have to say that as an average movie viewer who simply likes to be entertained and rarely agrees with critics, I was thoroughly disappointed in this film. I won’t spoil the ending but let me simply say that I was left feeling like someone forgot to finish the ending - there was no closure in the film, no justice for the audience and no point to the ending. There went two hours of my life (which actually felt closer to four) that I will never recover.

Still, I suppose a night out is night out.