Reflecting on Guatemalan director Cesar Diaz’s career to date, a strong pattern emerges. In addition to recounting the horrors of the decades long Guatemalan civil war, Diaz wants to tell personal stories. Particularly stories about mothers and sons. This can be seen in 2019’s Our Mothers and 2014’s Territorio liberado. Indeed, his most recent offering, Mexico 86 is dedicated to his own mother.
The film centres around Maria (Bérénice Bejo), an activist for the Guatemalan Liberation Army who is forced to flee to Mexico. She must leave her newborn son behind with his grandmother as her cover has been blown. Ten years later, due to her mother’s cancer diagnosis, she finds herself reunited with her son (Matheo Labbé), who doesn’t quite seem to understand the dangerous nature of his mother’s work. Whilst posing as a journalist for a magazine, Maria attempts to expose the crimes of the Head of the National Police in Guatemala.
From the offset, Diaz captures a sense of urgency and threat that pervades almost every aspect of the film. The score often sounds like ticking or a quickening pulse. Bags are packed in the middle of the night in order to escape to safety. Wigs are switched and clothes discarded. Even the colour palette seems subdued, as if to highlight a life spent in the shadows. Seconds after a successful parcel drop, Maria’s contact is stabbed to death in broad daylight. Every crowded place feels laden with unknown threats, causing you to scan all four corners of the screen. Did that man stare for just a second too long? How long has that black car been on the street corner? There’s a particularly intense scene where Maria, her partner and Marco all crawl across the apartment floor in the middle of the night to scan the street for Guatemalan police. She attempts to stay awake, gun in hand, all the while plotting an exit route. It’s a tension that never lets up.
Bérénice Bejo gives a solid central performance. Her desire to keep her son safe and give him something resembling a normal family life puts her work at risk. “I don’t want to have my nails pulled out,” Marco whimpers at her, upon hearing the threat level. “Will they torture me?” he asks. She envelopes him in her arms, every inch the loving mother. Bejo brings to the role both credible maternal and survival instincts. Her passion for freedom and justice lends her a steely resolve that has kept her alive to date. She is resilient, not vengeful. She is determined, not reckless. It’s a very well crafted performance and we truly get a sense of her being torn between her desire to pursue political activism and her love for her son. Will family life come at the expense of establishing democracy?
The film takes its title from the impending World Cup tournament, which the Head of the National Police and various Guatemalan government officials are due to attend. However, we never get to see how that unfolds. Whilst Maria pushes to have a “Death Diary” published, which outlines the ways in which various activists have been tortured and killed, Diaz stops short of giving us any real pay off. In that sense, it does feel like you are waiting for a dramatic crescendo that never comes. And whilst focusing on the personal elements of the film does lend it plenty of depth, we get no sense of conclusion or justice being done. Perhaps that is the point, but it is a little frustrating.
Mexico 86 is clearly a deeply personal project for Cesar Diaz. It shows in his careful character development. He doesn’t give his leads grandiose political monologues. Instead, he focuses on the small, independent acts that lead to bigger consequences. This is a quieter, although still dramatic, approach to a period of political turmoil that could have spawned a far bloodier and hyperbolic type of film. It’s an unsentimental slow burn that demonstrates the far-reaching shadow of war and injustice.
Mexico 86 is screening at the Glasgow Film Festival 2025. Get your tickets here.
- Glasgow Film Festival celebrates its 21st edition with over 33,000 attendances - March 25, 2025
- The Return – Review from Glasgow Film Festival - March 9, 2025
- Homegrown – Review from Glasgow Film Festival - March 8, 2025
