Director: Cesar Diaz
Writer: Cesar Diaz
Stars: Bérénice Bejo, Fermín Martínez, Leonardo Ortizgris
Synopsis: A Guatemalan activist battles a corrupt dictatorship in 1976 and flees to Mexico, leaving her son. Ten years later he joins her, forcing a choice between motherhood and her cause.
Last year, Chilean filmmaker Manuela Martelli presented us with her Hitchcockian thriller, Chile ‘76. The film created a fearless depiction of the Pinochet dictatorship through the eyes of a wealthy woman who had to hide an activist. The film covered a few months in the life of people undergoing an authoritarian regime, and paranoia and fear were felt at every moment. And that sensation is replicated by the audience watching. This political nail-biter was made to show a portrait of how it was to live during that time, and the effects of rebellious acts, even in their slightest, felt like you have people tracking your every move. Martelli focused on the blurring of the mind induced by the dread in the atmosphere.
There is a hesitation behind each decision made and its outcomes, and Chile ‘76 thrives in its pressure-cooker suspense built from the possibility of the characters getting caught in their activist acts. Like Martelli, Belgian-Guatemalan film director and Camera d’Or-winner César Díaz wants to capture a particular time in Guatemalan history that was riddled with violent political turmoil caused by cruel dictators with irremovable blood on their hands. In his sophomore feature, Mexico 86 (playing in the Piazza Grande at this year’s Locarno Film Festival), Díaz paints a portrait of an activist who has to take on the role of being a mother and the division she faces upon her revolutionary actions and the parental ones she must adapt.
César Díaz takes his own life as inspiration for this political thriller to develop a more personal delicate lining to the narrative. While it may not be as compelling or gripping as Martelli’s aforementioned film, Díaz ensures that we are sunk into the dramatic elements he presents, as poverty, racism, and social exclusion are prevalent during this period. The film begins in Guatemala in 1976. We hear tons of clamoring through the halls and streets. The bloody-handed police are searching for somebody–an activist part of a revolutionary group that is protesting the cruel, corrupt injustices plaguing the country via its mad dictator. That person is Maria (Berenice Bejo), who is trying to hatch a plan to escape the country after her rebellious actions have alerted the government and put her family in great danger.
As she holds her infant son in her arms and sees the body of her murdered husband on the other side of the street, Maria heads to her mother’s house. She grabs the essentials and says her goodbyes–leaving her son behind so that this dangerous act does not hinder his chance at a better life. During these initial minutes, Díaz showers the scenery with urgency and worry. The camera shakes as the characters restlessly get everything together so that Maria can hide from the world elsewhere. You get that sensation of persecution, a life-and-death situation that makes the audience feel anxious to a heightened degree. And with the nail in the coffin that is a mother having to leave her son behind for his safety–the ultimate sacrifice a parent in this situation must make–adds more impact to the story being developed.
Maria heads to Mexico, and as the title suggests, the film flashes forward a decade into her life in hiding. She is still an activist. But she is working from afar–handling and moving guns to the other activists in her region. Her current life mainly focuses on teaching young journalists in a newspaper company to make pieces and scriptures that target the Guatemalan government. Maria does not reveal to them her true intentions or involvement in the matter. Yet she shifts their perspectives and makes them see the cruelty happening nearby. The problems arise when her past catches up with her upon the arrival of a secret document that might place her under fire and her ailing mother bringing back her son Marco (Mattheo Labbe).
This is where Mexico 86 thrives, the tension boiling between a mother and son, both of whom have not been a part of each other’s lives, amidst the political turmoil blazing the setting’s streets aflame. Díaz takes part of his own life to fuel the two sides his latest work is divided into: the political thriller from Maria’s revolutionary past and the mother-son drama about fractured relationships and understanding. Both the director and the characters are performing a balancing act. While the former forges thrilling set-pieces and touching moments between its leads, Maria and Marco (particularly the latter) deal with this new connection as they are searched for. This cinematic forge does not mend to its potential; the division keeps the story tied up in genre tropes that take you away from the turmoil.
One continuous-shot chase sequence is exceptionally made with excellent, muscular direction. But the rest of the time spent on the thriller side of the story does not suffice, nor does it reach the effectiveness of the introduction. Nevertheless, the drama is where Mexico 86 finds its heart and captivates the audience watching. In essence, Marco is not Maria’s son, as she did not raise him. So, Marco must learn how to construct this relationship forged by blood, yet the person he is supposed to be attached to is a total stranger. Not only does Marco not recollect his mother, but he has never seen a picture of Maria to keep her identity secret. What the Our Mothers director brilliantly does is not make this young kid constantly question why she left him behind.
Instead, Marco understands her situation and tries to learn how this new relationship could work, considering her activism. Meanwhile, Maria must decide whether to develop a new life away from her activist work to be with her son or try to balance both, which might end in a sticky situation. This complexity elevates Mexico 86 to a point of narrative fruition. You begin to wonder about the multiple stories similar to this one and how each person felt about having a parent absent from your life to provide change for a great cause. Through Díaz’s vision in the film, it is clear that what happened is still affecting him to this day. It is a mixture of endearment and understanding. He does so with a delicateness that helps bring out the importance behind his story, although one might feel overwhelmed by the weak thriller elements that come with it.
