This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Nov. 12, 2010 - A dry, arid lakebed stretches for miles in all directions. In the distance, a truck approaches, kicking up dust as it does. The radio, the only sound we hear, reports of an Aztec statue being moved from an archeological site to the entrance of the Anthropology Museum in Mexico City.
That lost greatness stands in contrast to -- and perhaps even in judgment of -- the aimless discontent of the lives of the three young men whose stories form the heart of the movie. Jose (Francisco Godenez), whose father owns a ice factory, can't get over Yolanda, who repeatedly rebuffs him. Felipe (Aldo Estuardo), who works in an internet cafe, pursues one of his customers. And Andres (Roberto Mares), whose alcoholic father kept hoping to play Christ in the annual Passion play, is immersed in Mexico's pre-Columbian past.
The hardscrabble lives of these three unfold slowly and, for most of the movie, separately. Each of them is adrift, desperately in need of something -- love, connection, meaning -- but they never quite achieve it.
The naturalistic acting, the almost documentary quality of the filming and the setting in the real-life barrios of Mexico City heightens the sense of realism and the feeling that you're catching a glimpse of the unvarnished truth of daily life in Mexico.
Some of the scenes are breath-taking: the shrine in the lakebed, the arrival of the water truck and neighbors fighting to get their buckets filled, the prostitutes in mourning, and most especially the Good Friday procession with a sea of crosses. Director Alejandro Gerber Bicecci is especially adept in capturing the religious rituals that suffuse Mexican life.
But the film never loses sight of the three young men. By the time you're invested in the lives Jose, Felipe and Andres and have given up expecting that these stories will somehow intersect, they do. And they also reach back to the opening scenes with the strange events on the lakebed.
This being Mexico, history is circular, not linear. That's because when the gods created people, they beclouded their eyes so that they couldn't see what was around them.