El Mariachi

Filmed in two weeks on a budget of 7,000 dollars, El Mariachi was one of the singular pleasures of the 1993-1994 movie season. Kind-spirited guitarist El Mariachi (Carlos M. Gallardo) simply wants to wander through life as his father and grandfather did, with a song in his heart and a smile on his ...more

With its almost nonexistent production cost and unanticipated success, Robert Rodriguez's El Mariachi has become a legend among independent filmmaking. The work of an unheard-of 23-year-old director who reportedly acted as a drug-test guinea pig to finance his project, the film represented the ultimate rags-to-riches fantasy, a Blair Witch Project for the early '90s. If El Mariachi gained fame for the circumstances of its making, it endured on its merits as a film. Simple, unpretentious, and ...more