Slick Doc About the Slain Tejano Musician

It’s fun to see video of stars when they were children, when you can spot the adults they would become. Watch little Selena Quintanilla belt out “Feelings” in a home movie and you’ll find the same big voice, the same big smile and bubbly laugh, even the same bangs that fans would come to know when she became the pop star Selena. Such winning archival footage is the heart and by far the best part of the puffy documentary Selena y Los Dinos, an easy-to-watch celebration of her legacy as a musician and a cultural figure.

Her story is well-known, and was the basis for Jennifer Lopez’s breakout role in the 1997 biopic Selena. A third-generation Mexican-American born in Texas, Selena started singing professionally with her family as a child and became a star of Tejano music infused with pop. She was still on the rise in 1995, gaining crossover fans and working on her first English-language album, when, at 23, she was shot and killed by a former employee. Decades later, she is still an iconic, inspiring figure to the Latinx community.

Selena’s parents, brother and sister have given director Isabel Castro (the 2022 documentary Mija) access to a wealth of archival material, much of it never seen before, ranging from those home videos to interviews from her early career. Castro and her editor, Carolina Siraqyan have smoothly compiled the hundred of photos and hours of footage into a chronological account of Selena’s career, interspersed with interviews with the family. With the siblings also serving as executive produces, Selena y Los Dinos offers the rosiest possible view.

Abraham Quintanilla, Selena’s father, narrates much of the film — rightly so, since he was responsible for starting the family on its musical path. He noticed his youngest child’s talent when she was six. Selena’s brother, known as AB, who would later compose some of her songs, had already been learning to play guitar. Her sister, Suzette, recalls that their father recruited her to learn drums to fill out the group he had in mind, eventually called Selena y Los Dinos after a band he had once belonged to called Los Dinos.

The family band began performing around Corpus Christi, Texas, and in video from those early days the young Selena appears mischievous and talented, laughing and energetic behind the scenes. Most of the clips were meant for the public, and in local segments she appears to be a guileless but confident teenager, open about the fact that she was just then learning to speak Spanish so she could sing and do interviews in that language.

In their sit-downs, AB and Suzette emphasize how clear it was that Selena had to go solo. In 1994 she won a Grammy when Selena Live! was named Best Mexican-American Album. Clips from that era, including some of her performance for a packed house at the Houston Astrodome, reveal her magnetism. She had honed her stagecraft and pure ’90’s look of big hair, bold lipstick and rhinestone-studded bustiers. Her singing was emotive on hits like “Como la Flor,” about a lost love, the song most identified with her. She had dance moves on stage, and charisma.   

Selena y Los Dino‘s account of Selena’s personal life is sketchier. Her husband, Chris Perez, who had joined her band as a guitarist, recalls that he and Selena kept their relationship secret as long as they could, knowing that Abraham would disapprove. When she was 20, they eloped. The entire situation was certainly filled with more tension than anyone in the film allows.

The same gloss is applied to her murder. The doc includes a 911 call about the shooting, and a glimpse of Abraham at a press conference saying his daughter had been shot by a disgruntled employee who had been caught embezzling money. There are tears from her siblings as they discuss her death, but even then Suzette says she is glad Selena at least got to experience love and be a wife before she died. Celebrating what is good is clearly Castro’s choice here, but at this point in the film, racing past the tragedy and insisting on an upbeat approach lands as tone deaf. (For the record, the killer, Yolanda Salivar, was convicted and is serving a life sentence. A few weeks ago she filed for parole, and has a hearing coming up.)

The movie ends at the Selena Museum in Corpus Christi, and with young girls talking about how inspired they are by her. The sentiment rings true enough, but the film asserts her cultural importance without really demonstrating it. Selena y Los Dinos remains a slick doc most likely to appeal to her fans.