Direction: Issa Lopez
Country: Mexico
Mexican writer/director Issa López has in Tigers Are Not Afraid her most compelling work. Having a hard time to fully engage during the initial low-key dramatic realism, Lopez gives the story a strange path and makes it evolve into a crescendo. In truth, the tale plays a much better game after transfiguring into an eerie ghost story. It also boasts this baffling mix of surrealism and symbolism throughout, like in a dark fairytale, without compromising the director’s sort of sneaky self-confidence in aiming at the unbearable, widening violence in Mexico.
With a devastated Mexico City as a backdrop, the film centers on the sensitive 10-year-old Estrella (Paola Lara), who joins a group of orphaned kids led by El Shine (Juan Ramón López). After their parents have disappeared and some houses destroyed, they live on the streets, looking out for food and finding shelter at abandoned places. During a cartel-related shooting outside her school, Estrella was conceded three pieces of chalk, each of them representing a magical wish, but they only seem to trigger unsettling stuff such as haunting visions of her dead mother, creepy augurs, and fantastic metaphoric signals.
The process of finding a proper balance between drama, surrealism and horror was a tremendous challenge, but Lopez, even if not really exceptional in that mission, was able to create an entertaining tale, deeply unnerving in concept and featuring a few decent chills.
