El Traspatio (2009) Reviews

• Traffic

  kosmasp2010-12-28

  While this was played at the Fantasy Filmfest, it is anything but. It's more documentary than fiction. And there is no fantasy to be had here. Of course it is a very well known fact that crimes are committed around the world, so does this movie offer any new insight? Depending on how much you know on that matter, it might. And it is mostly "educactional" rather than entertaining. Trying to open our eyes to a very shameful situation happening. The question is, how much do we care or are we able and willing to change what is happening? Is it the old: "What can I do from where I am at?" or the "There is worse things happening elsewhere". Whatever is true, the movie is harsh and down and dirty and not something that can be considered an easy watch. It's as uncomfortable as to be confronted with things like the ones I have mentioned above. If you think this review is harsh, you may wanna stay away from this movie too

• Juarez

  RanchoTuVu2010-11-12

  Before the explosion of drug cartel violence in Ciudad Juarez was the ongoing murders of hundreds of women, many of whose bodies were dumped in the surrounding desert. Police Detective Blanca (Ana De La Reguera) tries her best to get to the bottom of the murders but runs into resistance at every step, from her commander all the way to the state governor. Juarez was a magnet for women from the impoverished south of Mexico thanks to the opportunities there to work in the maquiladoras. Sara (Carolina Politi) is a young woman from Oaxaca who is among the thousands who come to Juarez seeking work, and in the process being changed by the new life there, where the old conservative traditions are often discarded. Through Sara the movie presents the tragedy of the killings in Juarez, as the boyfriend she jilts after a few dates is taken in by a group of men who persuade him to get even. We never know who does these killings, but the exploration of this gruesome phenomenon is nothing short of fascinating in its look into the attitudes towards these victims. The real star of the film is the city of Juarez itself, as a radio commentator describes the "cobalt sky" and the camera captures the city's outlying areas at near dark. Jimmy Smits plays a wealthy El Paso businessman who owns some of the bars in Juarez and who is revealed to be yet another prime suspect among the seemingly so many who may have played their own parts in these horrible crimes. In the end, the film makes you appreciate the tragedy of this city.

• A comment on another review, amongst other things

  amyjulio2012-02-14

  One reviewer wrote that this movie is set in the "small" Mexican town of Ciudad Juarez, bordering the United States. Actually, Ciudad Juarez has approximately 1.3 million residents. While not the size of New York City or Los Angeles by any means, "small" town is hardly an appropriate description. FYI, Ciudad Juarez is only separated from El Paso, TX and a short stretch of Sunland Park/Anapra, NM by a narrow river, the Rio Grande (or Rio Bravo, as it is commonly known on the Mexican side). If seen from overhead it looks like one city. Many parts of Juarez are modern, Westernized-metro areas with shopping centers, U.S. fast-food chains, and an international airport. Together, the El Paso-Ciudad Juarez metropolitan area is populated by approximately 2.5 million people. However, from Interstate 10 on the West Side of El Paso which parallels the river, the differences between the cities are quite evident. A typical U.S. metropolitan infrastructure can be seen on this side of the river, while shanty towns made of pallets and corrugated metal roofs can be seen on the other side. The sight is profound, sad, and all too real. When one grows up in an environment like that, one tends to have a different perspective of the U.S. and what "first world" really means. Most U.S. citizens don't ever confront those issues first hand, on a regular basis. We Southern Border Folk are exposed, directly or indirectly to a poverty that is severe, harsh, and very different from what U.S. poverty is typically known to be. That severe poverty crosses over into the more rural border regions of the U.S. which are classified by the U.S. government as "Colonias", which are areas of the U.S. without the typical U.S. infrastructure that most U.S. Citizens take for granted (like electricity, natural gas, or running water). When you live in these regions, raised in them, compassion to those dealing with and escaping from this poverty becomes a part of you. Physical and geographical distance from that reality makes the heart less compassionate and the brain less understanding. That's why i believe most of us U.S. citizens tend to think politically before thinking humanely when involving border issues. We're mainly exposed to the "third world" through television; not driving to work, or shopping for groceries, or going to school. Now there is undoubtedly extreme poverty scattered throughout the United States. Many citizens of Native-American communities and reservations live far below the U.S. poverty level. Pockets of what can be considered "third world" poverty exist especially in various regions of the South and in Appalachia, for example. These are areas like the "Colonias" where infrastructure is not systematic, but self-sufficiently innovated and "out-of-code", "off-the-grid", and not in that cool, tech-savvy, environmentally-progressive way. The difference between those areas and the "Colonias", besides the general ethnic background of the people (the aforementioned areas tend to be primarily White-Americans {or Americans of European descent}, and African-Americans) is that the "Colonias" encompass a much larger and concentrated geographical area as well as a much larger population of impoverished citizens than those scattered throughout the rest of the U.S. These "Colonias" which exist from Texas all the way to California, and whose populations all together make up a few million, are real. The vast majority are of Mexican descent, though of course there are also smaller percentages of White-Americans, African-Americans, and Central-Americans. Many are "illegal", though most are legal citizens born and raised in the United States. "Third world" poverty exists in these regions of the U.S., make no mistake. These people constantly strive to be self sufficient. They don't expect hand outs. They don't expect government programs to save them as the politicians often describe them. But they are stuck between survival and laws and codes. Sometimes laws and codes can prevent immediate survival. The corruption between the corporate and political partnerships between the U.S. and Mexico, the laws and codes regarding construction, and land ownership and/or distribution controls their access to clean drinking water and proper waste management. As these regions therefore have a population that makes little money, the public school systems that do manage to exist there suffer greatly and can't offer education that rivals the high earning and supposedly higher tax paying metropolitan areas of our country. These complex issues keep them from being able to sustain themselves, much less plan ahead and progress. The Capital cities of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California only throw pennies towards their Southern borders. The money stays near the Capitals, where the streets are paved and the schools have college prep courses and highly educated, and the highest paid teachers. It's hard not to view some of this oppression as systematic, as planned politics in order to keep a lack of "legal" control in a region in order to aid the criminal, corrupt entities to work in the shadows, with the citizens' eyes not focused on them because their eyes are fixed on the priority of daily survival. As these citizens continue to be ignored, their voices dismissed and their plight for survival repressed, the Southern border of the U.S. will continue to crumble, through an oppression that breeds desperation that will only feed social unrest and revolution. This corruption between the two governments creates a void of leadership which is then filled by the black market; by criminal entities that create for themselves an alternative to the severe poverty of the region. Those entities become wealthy, which then become exploitative, threatening, violent, and powerful. But the key word is wealthy, the alternative to poverty, which becomes tempting to those who are most desperate. As the two governments shake hands and exchange "legal" treaties, contracts, and money, they ostracize their constituencies, they're citizens, leaving them exposed to the "illegal" elements which are only to happy to embrace them. Peace

• Open wound until when...?

  Mariana Cornejo2009-03-17

  The problem of the death women is the hydra for any authority of Cd.Juárez, a common place for the intellectuals and artists to denunciate and a complete state of "under siege" for the society who see the problem unsolved since so many time. With that background, this is maybe the first Mexican film to approach this serious matter since the documentary "Señorita Extraviada" back in 2001. And definitely, El Traspatio goes in a more direct direction than Bordertown(2006) with J-Lo and Banderas having persecutions in Hollywood style, or that forced (and failed because it was superficial) mention in Casi Divas (2008). There are many talented people in this one: Reknown writer Sabina Berman takes some stories (of course it's not possible to hold the whole matter in one film) and builds the principal frame. Skilled director Carlos Carrera (from that Alfonso Cuarón/González Iñarritu generation) takes a crew of great actors (so many great performances!) and presents us the open wound. It's a great change for the Carrera style, going now into city stories more than rural ones. Look for the cinematography, is really outstanding. The story goes to the nearly stages (no one can tell the beginning) of the problem with a net of characters and stories that connect each other, transporting the audience to Cd. Juárez and giving many topics to think about. If you are interested in social intelligent cinema, don't miss this one.

• Message Movie.

  rmax3048232011-08-09

  Almost a docudrama along the lines of "Serpico", only this time the problem isn't a cabal of corrupt cops on the pad but multiple serial murders of young women in the border city of Juarez, across from El Paso. The characters aren't fully developed. They're not supposed to be. This is a story about sociology, not personal drama. The script wanders around quite a bit but it's difficult to see how this could have been avoided because the disappearance and murders of so many women can't be extracted from the political and economic contexts. And there are a lot of women brutally raped, murdered, sometimes frozen for a while, then dumped to rot in the desert. It's presented with some brutality too, but not cheaply. On the two occasions when a pistol is fired, it doesn't go off with the resounding WHOOM of a howitzer but only with an impertinent crack. The Serpico figure is Ana de la Riguera, who plays the policewoman with the burning intensity of complete commitment. Another reviewer observed that she'd spent too much time modeling and being made up, but I don't know why. Like almost all the other characters, she seems devoid of movie artifice. The women who provide the prey for the male predators are mostly young women attracted to the border by the American-run factories that offer a living wage for nine hours a day, five days a week. It may not be much but it's better than what they could do in their rural villages. Two cousins are provided as examples of what can happen to them. Neither is especially cute or sexy. They look like two cheerful, slightly plump teens mulling over the platanos in a supermarket. The women who come to Juarez are increasingly disappointed because it's a city of declining economic advantages. An American entrepreneur explains it to some Japanese businessman at a meeting. Mexican labor is cheaper than American. The young girls make about five dollars an hour. But businesses are leaving the border cities because labor is cheaper elsewhere. In Thailand you can get a worker for eighty-seven cents. What all this winds up as, is a kind of festering pool of instability and unrest. The Americans we see are vaguely sympathetic but they aren't going to help the Mexican police because, as one Texas congressman says, Americans aren't going to like seeing their tax dollars spent on law enforcement in another country. He's clearly right about that. Wars, yes. Law enforcement, no. Why do the gangs kidnap, rape, and kill the girls? Because no one is there to stop them. The victims are strangers, so no family feuds result. The attitude of the politicians towards this is one of irritation. Damn. The multitude of murders is beginning to dampen the tourist industry. Murders are so common that the newspapers have almost stopped mentioning them. The New York Times agrees to a story but it will be on page six. The Juarez talk radio host keeps bringing them up though, and is considered an enemy. "These murders are a hornet's nest and the best thing to do is stay away from it," explains the governor. Ana de la Riguera is determined to find out what's behind it and she does manage to make a dent in the murder craze but she pays for it with her job. We can thank a merciful Providence that we don't have to sit through the scene in which she must hand over her shield and her piece. We just have to sit through his telling her to do it. The director spared us that much but he does have a tendency to wobble the camera around as if caught in a terrifying conflict about which direction to aim it. As a narrative, this is rambling and sometimes a little confusing. There are lots of loose ends. Why introduce an industrial sized meat-packing freezer hidden underground in the middle of the desert if you're not going to explain it? But its informative value is so high that it makes up for the sometimes disjointed story. The dialog makes some cogent points. If you kill one woman, it's terrible. If you kill a dozen, it's mass murder. If you kill a couple of hundred in the course of a year, it's no longer news.