Direction: Yulene Olaizola
Country: Mexico
A supernatural thriller entirely shot in the jungle about the femme fatale Xtabay - a Yucatec Maya myth - brings so many possibilities to mind that it’s hard not to feel excited about it. However what was presented here by director Yulene Olaizola (Shakespeare and Victor Hugo’s Intimacies, 2008; Artificial Paradises, 2011) was powerless, with an overwhelming absence of mystery and a dormant storytelling.
Although regarded as an exercise in mood, the film employs crumbles of surrealism and folklore in an ineffective way, with the story rambling in circles with no apparent direction before throwing a bland conclusion at us.
The year is 1920, and Agnes (Indira Rubie Andrewin), trying to escape an arranged marriage with a malicious Englishman (Dale Carley), crosses the border between Mexico and Belize with a friend and a guide. Surviving a vicious attack by her intended husband, she is later found by a group of gum collectors led by Ausencio (Gilberto Barraza), who like the others, becomes under the spell of her beauty. In addition to a cold and fearless posture, the smile of Agnes - ranging between flirtatious to cynical - incites the fantasies of the men, who easily succumb to her power by losing their sense of direction.
Sloppy in the period details, unproductive in terms of tension and lacking character depth, the film never really explores the sense of danger, and even less the sense of adventure that could have arisen from a story of this nature. Olaizola's excess of control prevented Tragic Jungle from achieving an identity as something scary or profound. To be frank, I couldn’t find one single original idea in this shapeless movie.
