[Contains spoilers, many of them.]
Jonas Cuaron’s Desierto, the Mexican submission for the Oscar for Best Foreign-Language Film this year, should have worked. It does not.
There is no doubt that it will find a place in the current political climate. Immigration is a topic currently in the spotlight, thanks to a demagogue who has been opposing it vociferously. We read about incidents in the papers where immigrants have been attacked or threatened for no reason at all. So, a minimalist film about immigrants being hunted down like animals couldn’t have come at a better time. We think it will be urgent and exciting, not limp and ineffective. Certainly not limp and ineffective. But Desierto – well, you can guess.
It opens with a truck carrying illegal immigrants breaking down in the middle of a parched desert along the US-Mexican border, who then continue the journey on foot. On the other side of the desert, a drunken and clearly racist lunatic hunting rabbits notices them, and then, on a whim, decides to pick them off one by one. It’s not a random act of violence; he chases the ones who get away for two days without pausing for breath. For him, it’s a game where he has the advantage, a game in accordance with his beliefs. The unarmed immigrants have no option but to run, to hide, and to save themselves. But stranded in the hot son and in the middle of the seemingly endless expanse of a rocky desert, where could they run?
Like Gravity, Desierto makes it clear in its first ten minutes that it will be a straightforward, if simplistic, survival thriller. It was probably meant to be that way. If anything was different, like a villain with a conscience or maybe a bunch of immigrants who fight back, it would have compromised on its power to provoke. It wants to be provocative, so much so that there is no attempt to provide any background to any of the characters. They are markedly categorised into two groups: the unarmed and helpless are the good guys, and the armed inebriate is the bad guy. We just know that one of the good guys has a son somewhere. He's the good guy because he has a son, a family. The bad guy, well, has a dog, a savage one. He swigs from a bottle, laughs, and woohoo’s after massacring most of the group. Then he yells, “It’s my home!” in case we had any trouble figuring out just how evil he really is. So much for subtlety.
Like Gravity, Desierto makes it clear in its first ten minutes that it will be a straightforward, if simplistic, survival thriller. It was probably meant to be that way. If anything was different, like a villain with a conscience or maybe a bunch of immigrants who fight back, it would have compromised on its power to provoke. It wants to be provocative, so much so that there is no attempt to provide any background to any of the characters. They are markedly categorised into two groups: the unarmed and helpless are the good guys, and the armed inebriate is the bad guy. We just know that one of the good guys has a son somewhere. He's the good guy because he has a son, a family. The bad guy, well, has a dog, a savage one. He swigs from a bottle, laughs, and woohoo’s after massacring most of the group. Then he yells, “It’s my home!” in case we had any trouble figuring out just how evil he really is. So much for subtlety.
Desierto suffers from the same problems as Gravity, which Jonas co-wrote with his father, Alfonso Cuaron, but, notably, also has similar strengths. Our protagonists here, like the protagonist there, want to escape to safety. They need to improvise a way to get there with a lunatic and his loyal dog hot on their trail. We are filled with horror when the gun-toting bad guy attacks them for the first time, but that feeling doesn’t quite return even when the others are eliminated in gorier ways. Owing to a poor screenplay and inadequate character development, Cuaron turns a promising premise into a mostly predictable mess. It’s a slog where we feel nothing at all. We can’t be blamed, though; the characters in the film hardly show any emotion, whether empathy or fear, when their companions are killed. They remain unaffected, panicky. And if they can’t summon empathy, how can we?
Somewhere in the second half of the film, I lost all interest. It was too late to expect it to give me something more. The villain became unimaginably caricatural with his occasional murmuring of “Let's get them,” and even uttered a roar of anger at one point. (Oh, come on!) The last remaining immigrant – played by the ever-reliable Gael Garcia Bernal – tries to dodge him in the inevitable final chase, not fighting back even when his life is in mortal danger. It became frustrating. The most he does is utter a cry of helplessness to counter his hunter’s roar of anger. Such flatness overwhelmed me. The one-sided perspective managed to inspire some sympathy, but it made it less of a thriller. And that is a major flaw, even if the intentions behind it were noble.
Apart from stray moments of terror and wonderful work from cinematographer Damian Garcia, Desierto manages to remain mostly unimpressive. Some thrillers lack heart, others cleverness. This one lacks both. It's disappointing to see it being reduced to a rubble.
(Not For Reproduction)
Jonas Cuaron’s Desierto, the Mexican submission for the Oscar for Best Foreign-Language Film this year, should have worked. It does not.
There is no doubt that it will find a place in the current political climate. Immigration is a topic currently in the spotlight, thanks to a demagogue who has been opposing it vociferously. We read about incidents in the papers where immigrants have been attacked or threatened for no reason at all. So, a minimalist film about immigrants being hunted down like animals couldn’t have come at a better time. We think it will be urgent and exciting, not limp and ineffective. Certainly not limp and ineffective. But Desierto – well, you can guess.
It opens with a truck carrying illegal immigrants breaking down in the middle of a parched desert along the US-Mexican border, who then continue the journey on foot. On the other side of the desert, a drunken and clearly racist lunatic hunting rabbits notices them, and then, on a whim, decides to pick them off one by one. It’s not a random act of violence; he chases the ones who get away for two days without pausing for breath. For him, it’s a game where he has the advantage, a game in accordance with his beliefs. The unarmed immigrants have no option but to run, to hide, and to save themselves. But stranded in the hot son and in the middle of the seemingly endless expanse of a rocky desert, where could they run?
Like Gravity, Desierto makes it clear in its first ten minutes that it will be a straightforward, if simplistic, survival thriller. It was probably meant to be that way. If anything was different, like a villain with a conscience or maybe a bunch of immigrants who fight back, it would have compromised on its power to provoke. It wants to be provocative, so much so that there is no attempt to provide any background to any of the characters. They are markedly categorised into two groups: the unarmed and helpless are the good guys, and the armed inebriate is the bad guy. We just know that one of the good guys has a son somewhere. He's the good guy because he has a son, a family. The bad guy, well, has a dog, a savage one. He swigs from a bottle, laughs, and woohoo’s after massacring most of the group. Then he yells, “It’s my home!” in case we had any trouble figuring out just how evil he really is. So much for subtlety.
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| (Image source: www.screenrelish.com) |
Like Gravity, Desierto makes it clear in its first ten minutes that it will be a straightforward, if simplistic, survival thriller. It was probably meant to be that way. If anything was different, like a villain with a conscience or maybe a bunch of immigrants who fight back, it would have compromised on its power to provoke. It wants to be provocative, so much so that there is no attempt to provide any background to any of the characters. They are markedly categorised into two groups: the unarmed and helpless are the good guys, and the armed inebriate is the bad guy. We just know that one of the good guys has a son somewhere. He's the good guy because he has a son, a family. The bad guy, well, has a dog, a savage one. He swigs from a bottle, laughs, and woohoo’s after massacring most of the group. Then he yells, “It’s my home!” in case we had any trouble figuring out just how evil he really is. So much for subtlety.
Desierto suffers from the same problems as Gravity, which Jonas co-wrote with his father, Alfonso Cuaron, but, notably, also has similar strengths. Our protagonists here, like the protagonist there, want to escape to safety. They need to improvise a way to get there with a lunatic and his loyal dog hot on their trail. We are filled with horror when the gun-toting bad guy attacks them for the first time, but that feeling doesn’t quite return even when the others are eliminated in gorier ways. Owing to a poor screenplay and inadequate character development, Cuaron turns a promising premise into a mostly predictable mess. It’s a slog where we feel nothing at all. We can’t be blamed, though; the characters in the film hardly show any emotion, whether empathy or fear, when their companions are killed. They remain unaffected, panicky. And if they can’t summon empathy, how can we?
Somewhere in the second half of the film, I lost all interest. It was too late to expect it to give me something more. The villain became unimaginably caricatural with his occasional murmuring of “Let's get them,” and even uttered a roar of anger at one point. (Oh, come on!) The last remaining immigrant – played by the ever-reliable Gael Garcia Bernal – tries to dodge him in the inevitable final chase, not fighting back even when his life is in mortal danger. It became frustrating. The most he does is utter a cry of helplessness to counter his hunter’s roar of anger. Such flatness overwhelmed me. The one-sided perspective managed to inspire some sympathy, but it made it less of a thriller. And that is a major flaw, even if the intentions behind it were noble.
Apart from stray moments of terror and wonderful work from cinematographer Damian Garcia, Desierto manages to remain mostly unimpressive. Some thrillers lack heart, others cleverness. This one lacks both. It's disappointing to see it being reduced to a rubble.
(Not For Reproduction)
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