The cinematography of Mexican director Carlos Reygadas is the main focus of this dissertation, which aims to validate the artistic quality of his four films: Japon, Batalla en el Cielo, Luz Silenciosa and Post Tenebras Lux; define the creator's creative style; find references and key influences of his cinematographic approach; and recognize his identification with the typology of poetic cinema, as a reactive model to narrative and cultural cinematographic formulas. To complete this present work, the conceptualizations of six emblematic figures in cinema were chosen as the dissertation's theoretical foundation: Luis Bunuel, Robert Bresson, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Eric Rohmer, Andrei Tarkovsky and Abbas Kiarostami. Based on their perceptions of film, resemblances are noted, whether consciously or unconsciously referenced by Carlos Reygadas. Characteristics of poetic cinema are analyzed, including how such creators interpreted the use of sounds, editing, scene duration, space, dialogue of characters or models, importance of the creator's ethical values, methods of choosing and developing themes, and technical resources for handling images, among others. The poetic implications of Carlos Reygadas, a creator focused on stimulating an individual's sensory perception through the proper use of key cinematic tools -using image and sound to create a sense of time- are confirmed through a series of interviews done by the creator following his four films. In these interviews, reoccurring content in his speech is consistent: symbolism of titles, story ideas, use of non-actors, creative methods, filming process, sound and music, sex and faith, nature, references to film and literature, use of space and time, presence of death and the grotesque, and other technical elements. Finally, these and other cinematic elements and their variations in the four feature films by this director are discussed, which together validate the affirmation that Carlos Reygadas is one of the most representative creators of poetic cinema in the early twenty-first century throughout the Americas and worldwide.
