The movie was shot in a documentary style, although it was fictional and actors were used to portray the characters. The main plot of the movie was about a Mexican citizen's return to his home and village after years of working in the United States and sending money to his family. It attempted to capture the subtleties and hardships that he and his children endured on a day to day basis. It was extremely realistic. Because of this it fluctuated between capturing my sympathy and nearly boring me to tears. It was a slower-paced movie, and it used its realistic shooting style to address the main paradox of being a provider in a Mexican home, this being that the father must occasionally desert his family in order to provide for them.
The most powerful moments in the movie for me were as follows:
- A muted, low-key and affectionate young romance between the father's eldest daughter and a poor orphaned teenager recently moved in from out of town. In one scene the boy practices break dancing on his own and appears talented, although one never really shakes the underlying feeling of desperation shared by him and everyone in the town over the ever-present scarcity of resources. It was moving to see him express himself artistically against a backdrop of seemingly inescapable poverty. Later on in the movie a scene cuts into the middle of a conversation he shares with his girlfriend in which he asks her if she would ever wait for him. By inference it soon becomes clear that he is asking her if she would wait for him to return if he left for America to find work. The eldest daughter is obviously conflicted by his question; it is clear that she is thinking of her mother's similar dilemma as she considers his thoughts. Her answer is never shown.
- Potentially the most moving sequence in the movie is when the mother of the family, pregnant after her husband's return, has to go to the hospital earlier than expected due to a complication. She gives birth and is in critical condition and under hospital care for days while her husband travels all over to get her the correct medicines. Only her husband's point of view is ever shown, waiting in the waiting room or out picking up medicines. The doctors' pragmatic concern and realistic acting made the scene more powerful than any television medical drama. It seemed to really showcase the mediocre medical care and stress of living, although eventually both the mother and premature daughter ended up alright.
I value the experience of seeing this movie; as uniquely boring as it sometimes was, it always managed to be simultaneously captivating and quality food for thought. It was also interesting lingually to compare what I heard to the subtitles. It was refreshing and, at times, disorienting to me to see a movie shot so realistically. Instead of using gimmicks and plot twists to communicate a concept, it utilized the emotion and subtlety of everyday life moments of the family as its main substance. I kept genuinely expecting for someone to get attacked or something either terrible or wonderful to happen. Nothing ever did though- and in this way the movie left me with the peculiar feeling of actually having viewed reality and having been forced to ponder the actual lives of this Mexican family. (I was reminded of its fictitious nature, however, when I laughed out loud after recognizing an elderly actress from the comedy Nacho Libre.) The movie ended abruptly when the father had to leave a second time, and this was frustrating as it left the viewer curious as to what happened to the characters we had invested our time in. In retrospect, I think this is what the director wanted though, to spark concern over the lives of others far away.
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