Title: The Box (La Caja)
Director: Lorenzo Vigas
Language: Spagnolo
Running time: 92'
The Box (La Caja) is the third movie in Lorenzo Vigas’ trilogy about the Latin American father, preceded by the short “Elephants Never Forget (Los elefantes nuca olvidan)” and then by his first fiction feature “From Afar (Desde allá).” He sees the Latin American culture as deeply shaped by the absence of many fathers, in which he identifies as the cause of phenomena like Peronism and Chavism, where the leader fills the emptiness that the father who was never home left.
Hatzín (Hatzín Navarrete) is a very young boy who lives with his old grandma. She sends him to collect his estranged father’s remains in an industrial town. However, he recognises in a man on the street his father, and thinks there’s been a mistake. He tries with his every energy to enter this man’s, Mario (Hernán Mendoza), life. Hatzín sees in him his father, and refuses to believe otherwise. Eventually, Mario allows him to be part of his life and actually gives him a job on his side: they hire labourers for factories, where the exploitation of the workers is commonplace. Our young protagonist has to open his eyes to the reality of the Mexican work situation, one that probably killed his father as well.
A father-son relationship establishes between Mario and Hatzín, even though it is about something different for each of the two. For Mario, everything is about survival, protecting his own family (he even has a baby on the way). So, while on the one hand, he can be a very loving partner, on the other, he can be very ruthless when dealing with the families of the workers he hires. Hatzín starts to realise these horrors, not only in his relationship with Mario, but also in the reality of the situation of the labourers in Mexico.
As much as the Latin American father is a very present topic in the movie, another issue that stands out is the labourers’ situation in the factories in Mexico, and what they call “the war against the Chinese.” The wages are not living wages, the workers are often scammed by figures like Mario, who seem nice but that in the end send them to work in places where they aren’t valued at all, just exploited. The reality is that, if you complain and stand up for your labour rights, you might end up in a box, just like Hatzín’s father. The way in which Vigas depicts this reality has something that feels like a documentary. The shots are definitely carefully studied but, at the same time, they feel improvised as if they were part of a documentary, as if the director had to hurry up to capture that moment before it’s gone. To make sure we don’t lose the focus on these social themes, the movie is often shot using a telephoto lens. It captures the reality of the situation in which the workers live, elevating them as more than just hands to work.
Exploring two very important social themes, The Box can really jump from the absence of the father figure in Latin American communities, to the exploitation of labourers in Mexico, both topics highlighting the excesses of capitalism in developing countries. It seems like what The Box does is open Pandora’s box on these pressing social matters.
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