Identifying Features - Movie Review

Critics Score - 8 of 10

General Audience Score - 5 of 10

Some of us have been to Mexico or Latin American, usually on vacation or a getaway, we see the best and most beautiful things these countries have to offer without the inconvenience of extreme poverty, crime, rape and sex trafficking. When you get past the resort facade of some of the popular tourist locations, you can get glimpses into the dark side of what life is like in many of these countries for many people that didn’t have the luxury of being born in the right areas of this planet. A new Spanish language film from earlier this year, Identifying Features, comes out of Mexico and will hopefully get submitted and a nomination for Best International Feature Film at the Oscars. It takes us on a journey into the more rural and wild parts of Mexico where they still lack electricity, but many of these areas are as beautiful as they are dangerous. If you’re a person who doesn’t need A list actors and special effects to enjoy a film or you can get into smaller, low budget films with great stories to tell and other fascinating Features, you’ll quickly Identify this wonderful and moving piece of cinema as one of the finest films to come out yet this year.

SYNOPSIS - This excellent but harrowing tale begins with a young man, Jesús (Juan Varela), who lives in rural Mexico, setting off with his friend to catch a bus and head for the American border in hopes of a better life. It's not long before Jesús' mother Magdalena (Mercedes Hernández), and his friend’s mom are sitting in a police station asking the officials to look for their missing sons whom they haven’t heard from in quite some time. The police show them some pictures that federal agents send in of bodies recovered, the mother of Jesús' friend begins to flip through some pages before finding pictures of her son's body. But without any signs of her boy, Magdalena starts out on a fool's errand to see if there's any chance her son is still alive. The weight the film carries hangs heavy, it's almost suffocating in it’s portrayal of the hopelessness of this poor woman’s situation as she gets a ride to the border and inquires with the bus company about the day her son was supposed to be riding with them. A woman finally tells her the bus was attacked but a survivor made it back to a rural town and Magdalena sets out to find him and try to discover what happened. She meets another young man Miguel (David Illescas) who's heading home to see his own mother for the first time in five years and he helps Magdalena get headed in the right direction to the town the man lives in. Once she finally meets and is able to speak with the man, he explains that he remembers seeing her son and his friend, but he also saw the devil that fateful night that the bus was attacked. Cue the ominous music.

By the time the devil heads back to Georgia, you’ve been taken to the dark side of what crossing the border is like for some. If you have a few drinks before starting this film, you’ll finish it sober, or possibly fall asleep. While the story is gripping, it's takes it's sweet time to build up to a climactic ending. At just over an hour and a half, the film progresses in a very slow and patient way, and viewer interest can wane with some ongoing sequences of great cinematography highlighting the deserts and terrain of northern Mexico, but these are contemplative moments with little happening. The threat of death hangs over the film like a thick, gray mist on a cold, fall morning. The film is in spoken Spanish with English subtitles, but hopefully that won't deter many from getting a glimpse of the things that happen to and threaten people that live not so far away from where you're at right now. The work from the few actors involved in this film is really something special, it's easy to get lost in this world with these unfamiliar faces at the helm doing some terrific acting, even though the performances are fairly subdued.

SUMMARY - While the foreign film genre isn’t for everyone, there are often absolute gems to be found among the many quality options that come in from around the globe. While it’s really not standard movie fare the masses will get down with, the storytelling is top notch and it’s the kind of important, impactful film that can create awareness and help us grow individually and as a society. It’s up to you whether you want to stick it out for the reward, but you’ll find it’s not difficult Identifying the Features of great cinema such as this.