A Segregated Zone in Mexico City (La Zona (DVD))

Member Name: Praskipark

Product:	La Zona (DVD)
Date:	07/11/08 (134 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Thought provoking film regarding class wars in Mexico City

Disadvantages: Disturbing scenes of violence and a Little depressing at Times

Movie Only Review
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Mexican director Rodrigo Pla takes us on a nightmare journey through the reality of contemporary Mexico in his first feature film La Zona. Pla dishes up generous references to modern cinema history, from Fernando Meirelles's multi award winning City of God (2002) going right back to Arthur Penn's The Chase (1996). La Zona was a hit at nine film festivals and picked up the Luigi de Laurentiis Award at the Venice Film Festival and the International Critics' Award (FIPRESCI) at the Toronto International Film Festival.

The zone that gives the film its name is a wealthy enclave in Mexico City fenced off from the slums that beseige it on all sides by a high wall topped with barbed wire. Around the clock surveillance and private security guards see to it that the lower classes without never set foot within.

The motley crew of doctors, lawyers, accountants and retirees on above average pensions inhabiting the Zone may not qualify as super rich but they are preoccupied with security. This common quest leads them to willingly submit to constant supervision and to subordinate their lives to the edicts of their elected Council of Residents.

One day, the Zone is tragically yanked out of its solitude when a violent storm blacks it out and sends a huge billboard crashing onto the wall. Three drunken youths use the billboard and the darkness to scale the wall unseen, their hastily hatched plan being to make off with as much loot as they can. They manage to get caught in the first house they break into by the elderly female owner, who confronts them with a small pistol. The intruders knock her out and then strangle her. One of them rips the rings from the dying woman's fingers. The housekeeper escapes and alerts security who perfunctorily gun down two of the fleeing burglars.

A posse of well armed residents led by Gerado (Carlos Bardem - Goya's Ghosts) is organised to hunt down the third. Miguel (Alan Chavez). One of the vigilantes, an architect named Daniel (Daniel Gimenez Cacho-Nicotina) has a son, Alejandro, who has just turned 16. Alejandro is too sensitive to join the hunt with the same gusto as his friends. One has armed himself with a baseball bat, another with a spear gun and yet another with a gun he stole from his father.

The Council of Residents, over the objections of Alejandro's mother Mariana (Maribel Verdu - Pan's Labyrinth, and Your Mother Too), resolve to dispose of the dead and continue the chase without bothering to notify the police. The Zone's residents wield more than enough clout to stymie any investigation the local police chief, Comandante Rigoberto (Mario Zaragoza - Man on Fire) might be thinking about opening up, no matter how strong the evidence.

Predictably, Alejandro gets to the terrified fugitive first. What follows is a quick and painful lesson in adulthood for a boy who has so far lived a sheltered life and lived within the walls of the society.

My Thoughts
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A great deal of precision has gone into the making of this film. A phone number written on Miguel's arm and a hi-tech camera Alejandro gets for his birthday both become significant at some point. La Zona is also a morally ambiguous movie whose greatest failing is its attempt to elicit sympathy for the fate of a young man capable of brutally smashing in an elderly woman's head in cold blood.

This film is loosely based on a short story written by Pla's wife. It is a gripping thriller, suspenseful and at times deeply depressing and disturbing. The imagery is striking, and, the narrative, quick slick and upbeat. Some of the scenes, like the sewage pipe chase are amazing and you are always on the edge of your seat feeling nervy and restless. In a way this film recalls the classic 1970's paranoia movies, in the way that brutality and corruption of the police force are just as sickening as the violence.

Pla himself is obviously very much concerned with the struggle of the poor and the apartheid in Mexico City. He believes that the rich will always keep the poor down and although true, this is sometimes exaggerated in the movie. The film takes time to comment on twisted values; like mob mentality, showing how terrifying it can be. Democracy and how it doesn't really work. The community have their own assembly that call the shots by majority vote but when some members disagree with Miguel's manhunt, they too are ostricised and some of their liberties taken away.

The rich who live behind the walled security have lost faith in the system and they belive that the police don't have any solutions to protect them from the outside violence. They are prepared to do anything to keep their belongings that they have worked for all their lives, even murder. Pla's view is that building a wall around a society isn't the answer to keep all evil out - there has to be another way.

All performances are excellent although in my opinion Maribel Verdu (Mariana) is badly underused and could have been more dominant in the film. Alan Chavez is excellent as the terrified Miguel while Daniel Tovar is suitably ambiguous as Alejandro - when he finds Miguel - you genuinely don't know if he's trying to help the outsider because he sees him as a human being rather than an animal, or he is actually trying to set him up. What you do realise is that Alejandro's life will never be the same and there is no way back.

Interesting that my favourite scene is where a butterfly flies carelessly over the city, but as soon as it passes the walls of this small, secure society, it dies.

I will leave it there so you can ponder on that last note.

Recommended - this film will make you sit up and think. It has something to say and creates debate. Not many films do that these days.

Language Spanish

Running Time - 97 minutes

It should have been released in UK on 27 October. I have checked and it still isn't out but will be shortly and there will be sub titles so don't panic!

Summary: Questions if perhaps all countries have this Struggle?