Direction: Lorenzo Vigas
Country: Venezuela / Mexico / USA
In Lorenzo Vigas’ The Box, a Mexican teenager (Hatzin Navarrete) sets out to collect his deceased father belongings and ends up taking part in the underworld machine of immigration and exploitation. At first, he’s left twisting in the wind in a strange land, with the doubt if his father really died. Soon, he learns the business with the man (Hernán Mendoza) he suspects changed his identity and abandoned him and his family without looking back.
The film, as piercing as an internal scream of despair, warrants a response to the darkest realities of Mexico, tackling a sensitive theme through a brainy story punctuated with some surprises. The biggest amusement of this unsentimental tale of hope turned disenchantment is to see how this clever kid observes his surroundings and deals with each different situation.
This same subject was addressed with less issues in films such as Identifying Features and Prayers for the Stolen. Yet, even discreet and imbued with some strangeness, The Box still digs its own path within this particular drama subgenre. It caused me to ponder on the nature of each human being by making simple emotions complex, and complex questions impossible to answer.
