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499
499
7.9
/10
281 Ratings

499

Directed by Rodrigo Reyes
Mexico, United States, 2020
Documentary

Synopsis

Exactly 499 years after the Spanish conquest of the Aztecs, an unnamed conquistador washes up on the east coast of Mexico as if ejected from a time machine. In his period costume, he treks over the mountains, from Veracruz to Mexico City, the same route Hernán Cortés took to conquer Tenochtitlan.

Synopsis

Exactly 499 years after the Spanish conquest of the Aztecs, an unnamed conquistador washes up on the east coast of Mexico as if ejected from a time machine. In his period costume, he treks over the mountains, from Veracruz to Mexico City, the same route Hernán Cortés took to conquer Tenochtitlan.

Our take

With its witty, time-traveling premise centered on a returning conquistador, Rodrigo Reyes’s roving hybrid documentary sets off a chain of inquiry into the dark history that colonialism wrought on the Mexican landscape. In 499, whimsical and satirical flights of fancy encase a seed of bitter truth.