On screens from Wednesday December 11, the feature film by Mexican Pierre Saint-Martin Castellanos. The film could have been subtitled with one of the main character’s lines from the film, ” Forgetting the dead is a sin “. The director digs into a story, that of his own family, and shows that if we must not forget the dead, we must also not let ourselves be overcome by their memory and the weight of the errors of the past.
3 mins
Black and white for the image, like those of the past that haunt Socorro. The film opens with archives of student demonstrations from 1968 to Mexico. Young people in the street, helicopters circling, then tanks, shooting and shouting… A sequence now known as “ Tlatelolco massacre “. We are on the anniversary of the disappearance of Jorge, “Coque”, the brother of Socorro, then a very young boy, killed by the security forces in that disastrous October 1968.
Socorro lives in an apartment that she shares with the ghost of her brother, her sister, a shadow wearing curlers, her son and daughter-in-law, and a dove she named Coquita, in homage to Coque. She has decided to avenge his death: the years have passed and it is no longer so dangerous to investigate the past. The character of Socorro is inspired by the director’s mother who also lost a brother in Tlatelolco Square, and he is played by an actress, Luisa Huertas who carries the film on her shoulders. An actress known in Mexico, notably for her roles on stage, her deep voice oiled by cigarettes and tequila, she is filmed skin deep and none of her wrinkles are spared us. He is a whimsical character, little concerned with propriety, who takes off his socks and “unplugs” (removes his hearing aid or collapses into pretty feathers) when those around him become heavy.
No nos moverán (we will not give in)the title of the film — hailed by two awards at the last Cinélatino meetings in Toulouse and several awards in Mexico — is also a song. Performed by Joan Baez or the Chilean Quilapayun, she was born from the fight for civil rights. We must resist oppression. A lawyer, Socorro has a very particular point of view on the justice system in her country: it is a corrupt justice system, “ made for the rich and powerful “. She does not hesitate to resort to blackmail on a crooked prosecutor to extort the contact of a mobster, to consider a beating so that clients obtain justice or to disguise her daughter-in-law as a “ whore » to obtain papers… To avenge her brother, she will take the same paths: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. An unfortunate cat will pay the price for his conception of justice.
To relax the family behind closed doors, the director – for whom this is his first feature film – plays on several registers: he borrows from the codes of film noir (its visual effects in particular), but also from burlesque, and pastiche a certain Mexican cinema with , for example the character of Siddartha, a young thug accomplice of Socorro, inspired by the famous Cantinflas. But the clever scenario reserves some surprises. We won’t say anything about this 45° turn, but we will remember that if forgetting the dead is a sin, knowing how to forgive (oneself) is also very important.
► The release of the film is accompanied by several meetings organized by the distributor Reel – Films