Direction: Tatiana Huezo
Country: Mexico
Turned into a remarkably straightforward and effective drama film by the El Salvador-born documentarian Tatiana Huezo (Tempestad, 2016), Prayers for the Stolen is a successful screen adaptation of Jennifer Clement's novel of the same name. The film tells the story of Ana (Marya Membreño) and her two friends - Maria (Giselle Barrera Sánchez) and Paula (Alejandra Camacho) - who are strictly forbidden to act and dress like girls. They are forced to cut their hairs like a boy and need to hide underground whenever cars approach their houses.
This infuriating story, set in the Mexican mountain village of San Miguel (where they explode the mountains and the telephone signal is limited to the outskirts), set mothers and daughters to be incessantly alert against savaging kidnappers, rapists and extortionists who operate beyond the law. The kidnappings of young girls are recurrent, and their absent fathers, all living and working in bigger cities to send money home, are not there to defend them. Ana’s mother (Mayra Batalla), a worker in a small poppy field who is often consumed by sadness, has to show a firm hand as she trains her daughter to prevent and escape threatening situations. There’s a special language between them but that’s not always a guarantee.
The restlessness of Prayers for the Stolen never ebbs and that makes for a thoroughly entertaining, if somewhat exhausting, 110 minutes. Brilliantly composed, it finds beauty as well as ugliness in this part of Mexico, a place where the cartel enforcement and the violence steal the innocence of the local female teens, depriving them of freedom and a proper life.
