# La Catrina is the new music video by Buena Fe **Date:** 06/08/2021 For a few days now, Buena Fe's most recent music video has been available on Youtube and other networks, featuring the song «La Catrina», a work by Israel Rojas from the album «Carnal», with which the group celebrated its 20 years in 2019. The music video was directed by creators Abel López and Víctor López of RemacheStudios and features a special performance by Denis Ramos. With a golden finale, the audiovisual journey of Carnal, Buena Fe's latest album, comes to an end. And by gold, we are not referring to "don dinero" (moneybags), who points with his index finger to make us his accomplices and not his companions, nor to what glitters, the lavish veneer of what aspires only to appear and be valued in the showcase of cyclic society; but rather to what is valuable because it makes us participants in the web of meaning, from which springs the pride of being "us", south of the Río Bravo, as "skull-like" in the end as the "others", further north. "La Catrina" is the fourth track and one of the most catchy songs on Carnal. One of the initial vectors of the album's discursive and conceptual curve. By its subject matter, it dialogues with other songs, especially those that precede it, "Valiente", insofar as it alludes to defying fear and the thrusts of individualism, and with "Sobre el arte de retoñar", with a chorus framed in death, that speaks of putrefaction and poison. It is a proclamation of desires, an account of what ails the world and should disappear; those who deserve to be punished, to go "dance with the ugliest one", with the reaper, with La Catrina. The song has its roots in a visit the duo made to Bolivia in 2018 —Israel Rojas recounted in his last Tuesday live stream. About to leave the tour of a museum in La Paz about the culture of indigenous peoples, in the last of its rooms, they found a mannequin dressed in a suit full of lead weights. He then learned of a punishment practiced until the 1990s by communities living around Lake Titicaca and close to the Amazon, which they applied to those who committed a crime of social impact. By community law, deliberation could take place and a sentence could be agreed upon that consisted of dressing the accused in that heavy suit and making him dance until he collapsed. It is the "dance of death", in a procession that is organized, he is made to dance until death; dancing expiates all those demons and he moves on to the new life without those burdens. Based on that experience, the songwriter from Guantánamo came up with the idea of writing a song, but not limited to the Bolivian "dance of death". So, he researched international practices around capital punishment, its history, and the limits of these social correctors. Thus he encountered, as part of Latin American traditions, the Mexican character of La Catrina. "This video was a seduction". In January of last year, when least expected, a message from Víctor Fx arrived via WhatsApp, with an audiovisual proposal for the song "La Catrina". In May 2020, a demo was sent to him that seemed to Rojas like "a visual punch, a caress and a surprise". It was difficult not to pay attention to it. It was thought back then that Joseph Ross would take it on, and in the end, due to logistical constraints and circumstances imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, the production proposal by Víctor López was embraced, one of the founders of Remache Studio in 2009. That is in summary the history of the video, premiered on June 1st. It was conceived, according to Víctor, to connect with the thematic axis, but without neglecting the lyrics; to represent those images and sensations, to have poetry and be visually attractive; without losing sight of the fact that it speaks of something as controversial as capital punishment. It turned out to be a work of art, produced by Remache Studio, with screenplay and art direction by Abel López and co-direction by him and Víctor, who also handled the cinematography. The filmmakers achieve a meritorious staging, placing tensions where they belong and evoking emotions that flow in the same direction as the song they recreate. With the intentional use of aesthetic and technological resources, color palettes, shots, animation, lighting, choreography... And above all, the organic blend of the histrionic abilities of actor Denys Ramos and visual effects achieved through computers, in postproduction work where Remache Studio has excelled. Elements that connect harmoniously with symbolic references from universal culture and more specifically from Mexican traditions, around that such a popular icon. La Catrina is the most well-known female character in Mexico, after the Virgin of Guadalupe. As a symbol it was created by two visual artists, cartoonist José Guadalupe Posada and the great muralist Diego Rivera. The original version is a metal engraving, made by Posada in 1812, during the Porfiriato. Its original name was Calavera Garbancera, in allusion to those who sold chickpeas and who, having indigenous blood, pretended to be European, denying their own race and cultural heritage. Posada drew them with bows behind their ears, as those women used to wear them, to "remind them of their origins". For the artist, originally from Aguascalientes, "death is democratic, since, after all, blond, dark, rich or poor, all people end up being skulls". The same was pointed out by the verses that accompanied his first prints: "There are beautiful chickpea sellers with corset and high heels, but they must end up as skulls, ordinary skulls". Diego Rivera finished characterizing her and named her as such, based on the popular term "catrín", which defined an elegant and well-dressed man, accompanied by some lady with the same characteristics. If Posada's appeared dressed only with a hat, the muralist added her characteristic attire, the feather stole. Thus he did in his well-known mural "Dream of a Sunday Afternoon in the Alameda Central". In the 1947 fresco she is the central figure, surrounded by more than a hundred emblematic characters from Mexican history up to that point. La Catrina is seen arm-in-arm with José Guadalupe Posada and holding the hand of Diego Rivera (as a child); behind him appears Frida Kahlo (who appears in the music video) and to his right José Martí, who greets Manuel Gutiérrez Najera. Las Catrinas were born in newspapers alongside the famous calaveras or calaveritas literarias, verse compositions that, as has become tradition, become popular on the eve of Day of the Dead to make fun of both the living and the dead, and to remind us that we all will die. They are usually written in a satirical or mocking language; they are very brief texts that reflect the entire spirit and festivity of the Mexican in the face of death. It is worth noting, by the way, that although Buena Fe's "La Catrina" does not have explicitly mocking lyrics, for our references it is indeed ironic the punishment of making one dance with death or having death make love to the criminal. The festive tone of the music is more evident. Hours after its premiere, the official video for "La Catrina" had generated more than a hundred praising comments. Among them, that of filmmaker Leandro de la Rosa, who wrote: "Barbarous, monumental, to collect. Congratulations, my friends". De la Rosa was the director of the video clip for "Cámara lenta", which together with "Patakí", "¿Quién soy yo?" and "La Catrina" made up the audiovisual cycle of Carnal; four audiovisuals, made by three creative groups, with different styles and constructions. "Different ways, colors, audiences… That was the intention" —Rojas shared with me. A number that matches his initial plan and the average of his previous albums. Products worthy of the album and the circumstances that determined its course since November 2019.