The moment where they mention the film crew, what was that about? It was weird.. The movie was good for people who enjoy seeing simple yet in strange way fascinating life,, and that can enjoy just the atmosphere created and get drawn into that ,...
shareI think the problem here lies in the idea that you assume the mentioning of the film crew was "scripted" or an intentional part of the film.
I love this film because it's obvious that a LARGE portion of it wasn't aiming to comply scene for scene to a screenplay... a lot of scenes just WERE. Having spent a lot of time myself in the primitive and desolate parts of rural Mexico (some even more primitive than the towns depicted in this film) I'm glad a film like this was made... simply to show what other atmospheres exist in this world... few filmakers are doing that right now, especially with settings as unique as those only found in Mexico.
Anyway back to the scene where the man mentions the crew, he mentions it because he was probably just literally drunk... these aren't "actors" in the traditional sense, it wasn't part of the film for him to overtly reference the fact he WAS in a film... notice how the other worker gets upset at him for explicitly stating that while on camera. The beauty lies in the fact that Carlos Reygadas decided to keep that scene in the final cut, regardless of the knowledge that it would typically be considered a "goof".
That scene, along with the one where the same man gets fooled into singing a song for the men... those are special scenes. They go beyond naturalism... Sure, the entire movie as a whole is fiction but certain scenes like those just cannot be reproduced by any professional actors, no matter how much method acting or improvisation or film study they apply to the scene. It's what sets films like this apart from the rest... it's what makes them so unique.