Abstract

From a Foucaultean view of power, this work analyzes the ways in which violence, corruption and disciplinary power are inscribed in Felipe Cazals’ trilogy of tremendism. It is proposed that the films Canoa, El apando and Las poquianchis, elaborate a new record in the representation of the popular classeswhich comes into tension with the imaginary imposed by the industrial cinema and, in this complexity, attempts to establish a critique on those totalizing stories that characterized the golden age and that made the Mexican imaginary of the popular a rationality in line with the postrevolutionary nationalist project. In this sense, the trilogy of tremendism is an attempt to contribute to overcome the culturally homogeneous and uniform character with which industrial cinema transformed popular culture into a cultural industry.