Jose Torres

This film is perhaps too subtle and intelligent for the masses who feed on fast cutting, "action packed", commercial film fare. You can't grasp the film, I think, if you ignore its context: two women from opposing classes abandoned by the men in their lives within the turbulent political period in Mexican history called The Dirty War. The film invites the viewer to consider these two women, who although from different ends of the stratified class system in Mexico, are left alone with the responsibility of the household and children as their "significant others" neglect their responsibilities to purse their own selfish interests. Outside the home, a leftist movement is growing, threatening to collapse the government which brutally strikes back. The film speaks volumes about how patriarchy operates across class lines and how toxic masculinity (Fermin) is easily co-opted to do capitalism's oppressive violent bidding when necessary. The film is more than beautiful stark cinematography (no, it would not be as strong in color) and strong ensemble performances. Although, the film could have shed a few minutes (that introduction was overbearing), it's still a film that is very current, given the Me Too Movement, and interrogates the interstices between class and gender. As someone claimed on this thread, if it's a film for cinephiles, it would be because a cinephile appreciates the nuances of a film and the intellectual import that a filmmaker brings to the art.