Director/Screenplay: César Diaz. Belgium/France 2024. 89 min.
You could probably program a whole season of Latin American dramas with places and dates in the title, like Santiago Mitres Argentina, 1985Manuela Martelli’s Chilean feature film 1976 and now César Diaz’ Mexico 86. This is no coincidence, because certain dates are of enormous importance in films that testify to the horrors of relatively recent political history – in Diaz’s film about the abuses of the military regime in Guatemala in the 1970s and 1980s. After his debut film in 2019 Our mothers and his previous documentaries, screenwriter and director Diaz continues to shed light on his country’s difficult past in a political thriller with a particularly personal touch.
A political thriller with a particularly personal touch.
Dedicated to his mother and inspired by their relationship, Mexico 86 tells the story of a woman living in exile, separated from her child. As one might expect, with love – but with unbridled harshness – the film generates an emotional resonance thanks to the sensitive but powerful lead performance of Bérénice Béjo, whose presence should help to make the film known after its premiere on the Piazza Grande in Locarno.
The story begins in Guatemala City in 1976, where Maria (Béjo), an activist committed to armed struggle, has to watch her partner and political comrade being shot by the police. While fleeing with baby Marco, she is informed by her cell phone that she must leave the country. Maria’s mother Eugenia (Julieta Egurrola) takes care of the child – and soon we see her and 10-year-old Marco (Matheo Labbé) visiting Maria ten years later in Mexico City.
Maria, who now uses the name Julia, is still active as an activist, under the guise of a dizzying variety of wigs, while also working as a proofreader for a real-life left-wing magazine. processMaria is entrusted with a secret file containing detailed information about people tortured and killed by the Guatemalan government. She is tasked with making this information public – a time-sensitive task, as Guatemalan officials have been invited to the upcoming opening of the 1986 World Cup in Mexico City and this is a crucial opportunity to warn Mexicans against complicity in their neighbor’s crimes.
Meanwhile, Eugenia, now terminally ill, can no longer care for Marco. Maria’s superiors insist on sending the boy to a “hive” in Cuba where the children are cared for by activists, but she vehemently resists – her motherly love is stronger than her previous unconditional commitment to the cause. When she and her partner and fellow activist Miguel (Leonardo Ortizgris) realize that Guatemalan security forces are closing in on them, the psychological pressure mounts and young Marco – doing his best to start a new life with his estranged mother – inevitably begins to rebel.
Skillfully crafted, Mexico 86 maintains a tense, slow pace accentuated by the claustrophobic feel of the widescreen cinematography of Virginie Surdej, who also shot Our mothers and has worked with Moroccan directors Nabil Ayouch and Maryam Touzani. The palette uses faded beige and burnt orange, hues often associated with the ’70s and ’80s in cinema; but the overall naturalism is also undermined by heightened color effects, including a menacing icy green tone – as in a scene where an underground car park gives the feel of a frosty aquarium.
Diaz weaves two genre strands into a small space. On the one hand, there is the political thriller in the tradition of Costa and Gavras, including a race against time and several exciting, swiftly edited escapes. Alongside this runs the family melodrama, with the emotional center shifting between the mother who has to leave her child and the boy who understands her cause but has always had to live with the pain of separation – this is captured most poignantly by the fact that Marco never had a photo of his mother for safety reasons.
Mexico 86 offers Béjo a significant, compelling lead role; it finds the Argentine-born star completely at ease in a Spanish-speaking role and using her characteristically understated acting style to powerful effect. Bejo’s understatedness works beautifully on several levels: as a woman living a life of deception, hiding her identity and feelings in the face of constant danger; and also as a mother whose love for her son brings unbearable conflict and the awareness that her protective care may not be remotely enough in the face of danger.
Young newcomer Matheo Labbé makes a strong impression as a precocious and sensitive child whose rebelliousness is on the verge of exploding under unbearable conditions. He harmonizes touchingly with Béjo – and with Ortizgris and Egurrola – in a film that obviously has heart, but is as tightly controlled and unsentimental as its heroine.
Production companies: Need Productions, Tripode Productions
International Sales: BAC Films, Vincent Llobell [email protected] /Goodfellas, Solene Michel [email protected]
Producers: Delphine Schmit, Géraldine Sprimont, Anne-Laure Guégan
Camera: Virginie Surdej
Production design: Pilar Peredo
Editing: Alain Dessauvage
Music: Rémi Boubal
Main actors: Bérénice Béjo, Matheo Labbé, Leonardo Ortizgris, Julieta Egurrola