Mucho Mucho Amor

Mucho Mucho Amor is a tribute as inspired and jubilant as its majestic subject, a true original, who “used to be a star and now is a constellation.”

Like learning how to cook a meal you grew up eating, Mucho Mucho Amor connected me with my past. It’s like the way air smells different and your heart feels a little bit bigger when you’re home with people you love and miss.

As one former collaborator notes, Mercado almost certainly wouldn’t have achieved the level of fame if he’d ever come out as gay. Mercado proved you could be idolized while still being othered, a fact that’s too often glossed over in stories of marginalized people who break down barriers. But that reality couldn’t dampen Mercado’s love–or lust, as he put it—for life, nor does it prevent Mucho Mucho Amor from radiating with it.

Mercado the human shell is gone, but his spirit lives on, expansively. In Mercado’s universe, there’s no such thing as just a little amor.

Damn this is fun.

The doc gives Mercado’s story back to Mercado. Better, it shows that Mercado is still the same spiritualistic, highfalutin’ fashion-plate as a retiree eating breakfast at home as he was on TV. The film’s biggest revelation is that Mercado’s mystical, magnificent, big-hearted shtick was no fraud — he was always the real deal.

It could use some sharper editing, but it’s an engaging portrait of a flamboyant character.