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El Infierno, Chicogrande, and the other nominations of the 2011 Premio Ariel (Ariel Awards) have been announced. The 53rd Annual Premio Ariel (Ariel Awards) are presented by the Mexican Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences. “The Ariel is the Mexican Academy of Film Award. It has been awarded annually since 1947. The award recognizes excellence in motion picture making, such as acting, directing and screenwriting in Mexican cinema. It is considered the most prestigious award in the Mexican movie industry.” The 53rd Annual Premio Ariel (Ariel Awards) “ceremony will take place on May 7 [, 2011] at the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City.” The full listing of the 2011 Premio Ariel (Ariel Awards) nominations is below

Best Picture

Abel

Chicogrande

El infierno (Hell)

Best Director

Felipe Cazals, Chicogrande

Luis Estrada, El infierno (Hell)

Diego Luna, Abel

Best Actress

Karina Gidi, Abel

Mónica del Carmen, Año bisiesto (Leap Year)

Maricel Álvarez, Biutiful

Úrsula Pruneda, Las...

This gentle Mexican film about father-son bonding is rapturous in its appreciation of an idyllic fishing community, but curiously naive about human relationships, writes Peter Bradshaw

There are some lovely, gentle moments in this documentary-style feature from Mexican director Pedro González-Rubio, set around the ravishingly beautiful coral reef of Banco Chinchorro in the Caribbean off the Mexican coast. Alamar – that is, "to the sea" – shows Jorge (Jorge Machado), a Mexican man bonding with his five-year-old son Natan (Natan Machado Palombini) from a failed relationship with an Italian woman, Roberta (Roberta Palombini). He brings him for a visit to his fishing community, perhaps as a condition of their split, although this is one of many things left unclear. The child is enraptured with Banco Chinchorro – as well he might be. The movie is evidently taken directly from life, with the participants playing themselves, but it tells us nothing about why the...

The plot of the gorgeous Mexi can film "Alamar" -- a father-son vacation -- isn't what Hollywood calls "high concept." But thanks to director-cinematographer-editor Pedro Gonzalez-Rubio, the film might be called "high enjoyment." Five-year-old Natan's Italian mother is about to take him to live in Rome. But before he goes off to "civilization," his Mexican dad, Jorge -- "part Johnny Depp, part Peter Pan," according to the press notes -- takes him on a magical trip to the Banco Chinchorro coral reef in the Caribbean.

An Italian woman meets a Mexican man. They fall in love, they have a son. And when the relationship ends, like a fairytale in which someone has to return to the mortal world from which he or she came, the woman readies herself and the child to head back to Rome.

Well, Mexico is just as much mortal territory as anywhere else. But the setting of "Alamar," the Caribbean Sea's Banco Chinchorro reef, an extravagantly beautiful landscape of clear azure waters and giant skies scattered with floating seagulls, has an incontestable air of the otherworldly.

That's where Jorge (Jorge Machado) is from, where his father Nestór (Nestór Marín) still lives, and where he brings his five-year-old son Natan (Natan Machado Palombini) for a last bit of time together before he goes off to live thousands of miles away.

In an open-air wooden shack perched out on the water, the men...