Caballerango

Caballerango (Horse Wrangler) is a 2018 Mexican documentary film, director Juan Pablo González's debut feature. It's a portrait of residents of Milpillas in Los Altos de Jalisco as they grapple with the sudden death of a young horse wrangler named Nando. The editing alternates wide shots of landscape and community with more intimate scenes where the director, a native of the region himself, asks questions of those onscreen. Gradually, Nando's death starts to look like it might have been a suicide. It also becomes clear that the community's still reeling from the loss of several other young people.[3] The mysterious circumstances of their demise dovetail with globalization's effects on the community: a drop in farming jobs and population exodus from the region.[4] The film expands upon material that González's Cannes Critics' Week short, "¿Por qué el recuerdo?" ("The Solitude of Memory"), previously broached.[5] It displays dimensions of slow cinema and includes only 37 shots across its 62-minute duration.[6]

The film's production occurred between 2013 and 2017,[7] and it received support from the Sundance Institute, the Ford Foundation,[8] the Austin Film Society,[9] and the California Institute of the Arts, where González is a professor.[10]