René Pereyra | El Angel Azul night club (The Blue Angel) / 2024

the miracle: a film of the dead—and living

by Douglas Messerli

 

René Pereyra (screenwriter and director) El Angel Azul night club (The Blue Angel) / 2024 [35 minutes]

 

Mexican director René Pereyra’s 2025 short cinema The Blue Angel calls up many previous works of cinema: according to the director himself, the work was influenced, in part, by Peter Bogdanovich’s The Last Picture Show (1971); in the work’s setting in a gay bar frequented by macho homophobes attracted by its transgender singer/dancer, it calls up another Mexican-made film, Arturo Ripstein’s A Place without Limits (1978, based on the memorable fiction by Chilean writer José Donoso, Hell Has No Limits); and in its sudden appearance of an all-leather motorcycle gang that totally transforms the experiences of the bar’s owner and beloved dancer friend it vaguely reminds one of Marlon’s Brando’s effects on a café owner and its denizens in another dying town, Wrightsville, California, in The Wild Ones (1953). This movie also vaguely hints at yet another Mexican located masterwork, Malcom Lowry’s Under the Volcano, made into a film by John Huston in 1984—although in this case, there is no “bar crawl” since this “night club” appears to be the only remaining entertainment spot in the dying town of Torres Mochas in which it exists, unless you count the prostitutes hanging out nearby on the street.

     And, of course, I’ve not even mentioned its titular flash of the 1930 Josef von Sternberg classic starring Marlene Dietrich.

     It almost comes as a surprise, accordingly, when we finally realize near film’s end that this is actually a statement not only about the gradual devolution of social and cultural experiences by a homophobic, macho culture headed up by a corrupt and hypocritical Commissar, but, in fact, is a film about a miracle with regard to AIDS.

     That this work achieves all of this in about a half hour is something near to astounding. In part, it is able become a kind of echo chamber simply because of its lack of complex plot and its preference of deeply rich cinematic images over dialogue.

    Out of the past comes a native of the village who has been gone so long that even the local doctor doesn’t remember him. Porfirio (Roberto Soto) has come home to his mother to look after her while he himself, HIV infected, faces his own death. He begs the doctor (Juan Menchaca) not to tell anyone of his condition.

   And that seems almost to be the end of that story as our hero opens up the new bar El Angel Azul, featuring his dear transgender friend Lola Lola (Maurici Abad). The place, like the town, seems almost uninhabited except for two young macho cowboys who make fun of Lola’s quite frankly terrible performance, calling her a faggot and sissy. The new owner has no choice but to immediately toss them out in a fury, they, in turn, insisting that he will regret his behavior and that they will see to the closing of the bar.

     One could almost describe that as the entire “plot,” except for a few other matters, including the closure of the only other place for communal pleasure, the town’s movie house Cinelandia, now being closed down by Virginia (Ruth Rosas) after years of existence because no one any longer attends the movies. All the men are moving to the States, she comments, leaving the town open to violence. The prostitute Isabel (Diana Salgado) argues that the movie house was the most interesting place in the town.

      But this and all the following events might almost be described as “incidents” instead of plot, embellishments which shift the perspective of this film from being a movie simply about a small dying town by presenting it as a world of the ghostly lives past and present.

      Meanwhile, two other prostitutes pay the town’s Commissar (Jorge De los Reyes) a visit to complain about the “sissy bar.” Obviously sent by their two cowboy clients, the girls suggest that their guys were afraid the faggots might rape them.

      The Commissar listens to them with patience, but also with what appears to be almost comic cynicism. Although they want him to close down the bar, he argues that it will be difficult since the bar represents “progress,” suggesting that such a place is a benefit for the town, as he basically shoves them out the door.

     He himself is on his way to The Blue Angel. He appears to be friendly with the bar’s owner, reporting what the women have filed as a complaint. Porfirio explains that the only event they have had in the bar was when two cowboys offended Lola and he sent them packing. But the commissioner, nonetheless, explains that in this small town they are simply not used to “weird” goings on.

     “What weird events, Commissar?” he demands to know.

     The commissioner leans forward and whispers, “the sissines.”

     “I think they have informed you wrong,” Porfirio asserts. “Here we are very decent people, artists.

     He suddenly declares that he has some errands to attend to, but begs the commissioner to stay, calling out Lola to perform for him.

     Delighted by Lola’s performance, the town leader whispers in his ear that he should send the other three customers away, which Lola does, permitting the Commissar to invite his little “Lolita” onto his lap for a kiss and clearly other private entertainment.

     In the very next frame, we witness a gang of leather-clad motorcyclists moving toward the village, which, we fear, represents is further vengeance from the cowboys and the town’s other homophobes.

     Meanwhile, in what almost might be described as a terrible sad interlude, we see a handsome young cowboy (Milano Velarde) standing against a wall on the street, obviously a different kind of town prostitute. Isabel walks directly up to him, announcing that she has been told that he has been hanging out in this location every night.

     The boy answers that she’s glad she now knows it, her answer being not only surprising but a bit shocking: “Mothers always know everything.”

      She believes that the closing of Cinelandia has led him to seek out company at this spot, a fact which the obviously gay son does not deny. But she is frightened for him, that he will end up just like her, picking up drunkards from the street.     

    For his part, he claims he had a very good teacher; that he has known for a long while that his mother was a whore.

    Slapping his face, she explains that she had no other choices, having been raped when she was young and becoming pregnant with him. How else was she to survive and raise him up? You have me, she argues. You can make other choices, look for a job, study, and most of all respect yourself.

“I don’t want you to be a slut. Find someone who is worth it and be happy. Accept yourself and be happy who you are…don’t make this dirty,” she implores. “I don’t care if it’s a man you’re with.” There is no answer, but at least he promises her he will think about what she has said.

     This little melodramatic intervention gives us, perhaps, a view of what the most understanding and respectable citizens of this town are all about. Torres Mochas* is not only a hell-hole but is something very close to actually being hell.

   We now return to Porfirio, dressed this evening in drag with a cigarette at the end of a ridiculously long quellazaire. The head of the motorcycle gang drives up, “she” asking him for a light. The gang leader (Marcus Ornellas) explains that the name of the place caught his attention, particularly since his name is Ángel.

     Our friend invites him to see the place, to which the traveler immediately takes a liking, recognizing the bar photos of James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, and in particular Marlon Brando. When he asks why the barkeeper is dressed up like a woman, Porfirio explains that it is in homage to his mother, who recently died. She very much liked the movie, La Mujer del Puerto (the last movie showing at Cinelandia), and she would dress up like Andrea Palma, and act like her, pointing to the dress he’s wearing, “this was her dress.”**

   When Ángel asks who as Andrea Palma, Porfirio laughs, explaining that she was a very famous Mexican movie star, but first she was the personal assistant to Marlene Dietrich. So does that 1930 movie now circle back to the name of the bar, resonating with its friendly new guest’s name as well.

    Our friend turns the tables somewhat, asking what brings Ángel to his door in Torre Mochas; this town has nothing to offer; it is dead he explains. “Like me,” answers Ángel, reaching over for a moment to hold the barkeeper’s hand. Our hero shakes his head a bit in wonderment: “I feel like we’ve known each other for a long time.” He feels so free to speak, so confident of the newcomer that for the first time Porfirio tells him that he is HIV-positive and that the medications are not working.

     Finally, he offers Ángel a drink. They toast.

    In short, we have now discovered what we have perceived as a threat to be a friendly force. Ángel’s gang are not among the enemies but have shown themselves as friends.

     Immediately after, however, we are privy to further ancillary events of hate and revenge. A woman has obviously been forced to leave her home, walking the streets with her heavy suitcase. The Commissar and two of his men wait in a SUV to beat up Lola as he returns home.

      We observe gangs of individuals hurling rocks at El Angel Azul, finally someone putting a tape across the door so that no one can enter.

      Porfirio attempts to talk to the Commissar who no longer recognizes even his own signed documents, proclaiming that the bar’s owner took advantage of the agreement by bringing to town all that “faggot” stuff which is not permissible in his Torre Mochas, he shouts.

      Citing the fact that Lola was beaten, Porfirio argues that the events have all been acts of homophobia. But the commissioner will not be moved. All Porfirio can do is beg to be allowed to enter the bar just to gather their possessions. As they leave the room, Lola turns and calls the Commissar a faggot.

      The camera pans the empty streets of Torre Mochas as Ángel and his gang come riding into town, parking their bikes outside the former Angel Azul. Ángel explains that he and his partners have come to town just to say goodbye.

      Porfirio is happy to see him and saddened that he won’t be able to maintain their friendship. But Ángel suggests perhaps destiny will bring to together again. Porfirio reminds him that he is ill and that he will soon die, yet oddly Ángel tells him that he is not at all sick, that he is cured.

      Porfirio tells Lola to go home and pack while he goes to the clinic to get his medicines and check up on his condition. There is discovers that a miracle has indeed occurred, there is no longer any sign of the virus in his body. He has been cured.

      The bartender rushes to Lola with the news and suddenly in a celebratory chorus the film presents us with a short visual necrology of famed figures who died of AIDS, a rush of numerous sad images that stand in counterpoint to Porfirio’s miracle. Here we truly do see the ghosts of the past which the movie has been hinting as if suddenly it were a reckoning like the “day of the dead,” the “Día de los Muertos” observed in Mexico when the souls of their deceased relatives return for a brief reunion that includes food, drink and joyful celebration.

      In the last frames of the film, we watch as the two, Porfirio and Lola throw their last packed boxes in the truck of their pickup. They get in and begin to drive off down the street on their way to an unknown future, but suddenly, in a scene that is the complete reverse of Thelma and Louise’s final expression of goodbye as they drive over the edge the Grand Canyon in the 1991 film, the truck backs up, returning to the very spot where it began.

      The two get out of the vehicle, Porfirio declaring, “We’ll stay here.”

      Hate and intimidation have failed.

     This is a truly remarkable short film just for all the cinema, literary, and cultural touchpoints it brings together in what adds up to be a statement of redemption for all those who died of the AIDS, so very many of them queer.

     Before the credits role, the film announces, what I have done several times before in the close my essays, the current sad statistics concerning the AIDS epidemic: “AIDS has killed more than 40 million people since 1981. In that first decade, the disease mean a social stigma and a death sentence. Currently 39 million people live with HIV; and 6,300 people are infected daily. 40% are young people between 15 and 24 years old.”

 

 *Torre Mochas translates literally into Mocha Tower, almost as if the village where a city of coffee. But the word “mocha,” the source of the famous Arabian coffee blend comes from Hebrew meaning “crushed” or “squeezed,” which quite readily explains the condition of this town’s citizens.

 

**That film, now a classic of Mexican cinema, has the following plot: “Rosario, a young peasant girl, gives herself to her boyfriend out of love, unaware that he's cheating on her with another woman. Disappointment and grief over her father's death force the young woman to flee to Veracruz and become a prostitute. One night, Rosario meets Alberto, a sailor with whom she falls in love. After spending a night of love together, fate reveals a cruel surprise.”

   The surprise is that Alberto, she discovers, is her brother. When she discovers that fact, she leaves the cabaret where she works and visits the wharf. Alberto goes looking for her, only to discover her shawl floating in the water, suggesting that she has dived in and has drowned. The plot was based on a story by French author Guy de Maupassant, but the director, Arcady Boytler, was born in Russia, and claimed that Eisenstein’s visit to Mexico a few years earlier had made him want to take on subjects previously not dealt with in Mexican film with the goal of creating a higher and more modern art form.

 

Los Angeles, October 1, 2025

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (October 2025).