Roundup: Mexico becomes fertile ground for Hollywood directors

By Sunday night, if bookmakers and film buffs are correct, Mexico's Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu will have taken home his second straight Oscar for Best Director.

"The Revenant," starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hardy, has established itself as a clear favorite throughout the awards season, with Inarritu winning the British Academy Film Award, the Directors Guild of America Award, and the Golden Globe for Best Director.

This is Inarritu's third Oscar nomination. He was first nominated for "Babel" in 2006 and won an Oscar for "Birdman" in 2015.

Yet fans are asking what has made the director Hollywood's newest golden child?

It may be Inarritu's uncompromising attitude toward and lasting passion for films. His first three films that claimed international fame -- "21 Grams," "Babel" and "Amores Perros" -- touch on death from different perspectives. "Amores Perros" presents human cruelty to animals in contrast with the dog's loyalty to their owners. "21 Grams" displays how survivors of a tragic car accident deal with their sense of loss. "Babel" shows how child abuse affects different cultures. These films have made Inarritu stand out for his striking visuals and willingness to explore human emotions.

Such an attitude has been kept when he took on projects outside of Mexico.

"Birdman" looks at a fallen actor's attempt to regain fame. Apart from the impressive performance by Michael Keaton and Edward Norton, it is the camerawork, which make the film seem to be done in one take, that won over critics.

Such ambitious cinematography is also shown in "The Revenant." The film, shot in Alberta, Canada, and southern Argentina, tells a harrowing story of a severely injured fur trapper who crawls his way back to civilization.

In order to create the imagery he required, Inarritu and his cinematographer, Emmanuel Lubezki, made a controversial decision to use no artificial lighting. The decision alarmed the studios due to the extra time needed for shooting, but ended with spectacular effects.

Lubezki is important for Mexico in the country's progress made in Hollywood. The cinematographer is also facing his third straight Oscar with "The Revenant."

Lubezki had worked with Inarritu on "Birdman." He was also instrumental in the production of Mexican director Alfonso Cuaron's film "Gravity," in which Lubezki combined cinematography with 3-D computer imagery.

"Gravity" won the Oscar for Best Director in 2014, the first for a Mexican director.

Cuaron first rose to prominence in 2001 with his masterpiece "Y Tu Mama Tambien," which scored an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay, and propelled two Mexican stars, Diego Luna and Gael Garcia Bernal, to their international careers.

The success of "Y Tu Mama Tambien" led Cuaron to one of the hottest directorial jobs at the time, helming the newest instalment of the Harry Potter series. His work on the third film in the series, "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban," was widely hailed to have made the best Harry Potter film of all. Cuaron brought a dark touch to the children's movie, delighting audience of all ages with well-executed thrills.

This dark touch led Cuaron to collaborate with Guillermo del Toro, Mexico's arguably most famous director, on "Pan's Labyrinth." Del Toro's only Oscar nomination is for Best Original Screenplay for "Pan's Labyrinth," but that may be because the bulk of his work has come in the fantasy and science fiction genres, which the Academy often sneers at.

Del Toro may not have the sweeping ambition like that of Inarritu, but he is a firm favorite among audiences, with the likes of "Hellboy" and "Pacific Rim" to his name.

These four Mexicans are leading the charge in making a name for themselves. A possible win of this year's Oscar by Inarritu will likely show that, after the French Wave in the 1960s and the return of British cinema in the 1990s, Mexican influence on Hollywood may also define the world's motion picture industry this decade. Endi