Juchitán de las locas
**½/****
directed by Patricio Henriquez
by Travis Mackenzie Hoover This documentary has a honey of a subject: a Mexican Zapotec town with a high tolerance for homosexuality. Unfortunately, it blows it when it takes a personal angle that obscures the town's inner workings. At first, the film gets your hopes up by showing Juchitan's relaxed nature–gays and the transgendered are treated with respect, women are given a high rank in society, and the Zapotec language is still spoken in a country where native languages are quickly disappearing. But Juchitan quickly shifts gears to follow several residents of the town, all of whom are male and none of whom give a real sense of how Juchitan society works. Some of these interview subjects are fitfully interesting. There seems to be little agreement on how one should lead one's sexual life–a professor seems to think that monogamy is sexual servitude, while a beautician thinks it's simply a matter of respect. And there is some reflection on the death of a local celebrity at the hands of homophobes, as well as the Catholic church's mishandling of the situation. But one doesn't really get a sense of the society that surrounds them, and while it looks like it might be a great place to raise children, it's in dire need of some socio-historical fleshing-out.
