Chavez 3 stars
Directed by Diego Luna
Shows again June 16 at 4:30 p.m.
Near the end of Diego Luna’s intriguing documentary on Mexican boxer Julio Cesar Chavez, Chavez sits in isolation in his dressing room.
It is just after his final fight, a loss to Grover Wiley, in September 2005, in Phoenix, Arizona.
Chavez is a terribly beaten man. He is an icon and hero turned mortal. Chavez says about losing, “He was a palooka. It was my fault.” He wipes away tears. It is an eloquent image.
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The great strength of Luna is that he is able to capture a very human portrait of Julio Cesar Chavez.
In several sequences Luna—bearded and wearing a baseball cap—is in the movie talking with and listening to Chavez. He visits Culiacan, Salinas, Mexico—the town of Chavez’s birth and rearing. And he and his cameras are in Chavez’s hotel room in Phoenix before the final fight and in the fateful dressing room after it.
By many estimates Chavez was the greatest Mexican fighter ever. He became a monumental national hero in Mexico, got involved in power politics and became a controversial and damaged figure.
Young actor-turned-director Luna has deficiencies—his movie starts slowly, and white-on-white subtitles of Chavez’s mother’s words are a big problem.
But, overall, the movie Chavez goes the distance with some style and a lot of humanity.