Mestizo realism: Impure aesthetics in Carlos Reygadas's Battle in Heaven (2005).

This article examines the concept of mestizo realism as an impure, hybrid aesthetic principle in contemporary Latin American cinema, focusing on Carlos Reygadas's film *Battle in Heaven* (2005) as a case study. Mestizaje, traditionally understood as the racial and cultural mixture arising from colonial encounters, is here framed as a complex, border-crossing negotiation that produces fragmented subjectivities and a baroque form of realism characterized by contradictions, liminality, and aesthetic experimentation. The film's juxtaposition of social, racial, religious, and cultural elements—such as the contrast between characters' bodies, religious iconography, and musical choices—illustrates this impure mestizo realism, which resists dominant national and representational ideologies to create a hybrid cinematic language. Drawing on concepts like ch'ixi (a coexistence of contrasting identities without full mixing) and codephagy (the devouring and transformation of cultural codes), the article situates mestizo realism as a politically and aesthetically disruptive mode that challenges fixed identities and hegemonic narratives in Latin America.