‘Selena y Los Dinos’ Review: Definitive Doc on the Tejano Music Icon Surprises with Candid Footage and Unspoken Observations
variety.comCarlos Aguilar If a live performance can be deemed hallowed ground, then Selena Quintanilla at the Houston Astrodome in February 1995, a month before her untimely death, certainly qualifies.
From that night, the heartfelt opening verse of her anthem “Como La Flor” sounds like a prayer, before the bittersweet jubilation of the cumbia ballad begins.
Footage of that landmark concert unavoidably forms part of “Selena y Los Dinos,” a new documentary on the Quintanilla family and Selena’s rise to stardom — directed by Isabel Castro, whose previous doc “Mija” was also about Mexican American women in music.But how can a filmmaker conjure up something unsaid and unseen about someone so widely revered, and still indelibly present in culture today?
The answer: by gaining access to the Quintanilla family’s personal archives and forging judicious thematic threads with the material — much of which has never been made public before.
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