Guatemalan born director César Diaz, a 2019 Camera d’Or winner for “Our Mothers,” pulls from his past to provide a harrowing and earnest look at an activist’s inner tumult in his latest title, “Mexico 86.”
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Bowing at Locarno’s Piazza Grande on Aug.10, the film centers on the toils and sacrifice of its resident revolutionary Maria, played by Academy Award nominee Bérénice Béjo (“The Artist”).
French sales are handled by Bac Films, with Bac and Goodfellas taking on international rights. Benelux distribution goes to O’Brother while Swiss sales are handled by Xenix Film.
The project is produced by Belgium’s Need Productions and French outfit Tripode Productions and co-produced by Pimienta, Menuetto, France TV, RTBF, Voo & Be TV, Proximus and Shelter Prod with associate production credits to YK Well Enterprise and Yukunkun.
From her decision to rebel against an unjust regime on through to her exile in Mexico, where Maria faces the high consequence of her fierce dedication, the narrative pays solid homage to those brave enough to push for a brighter future despite close-to-home casualties here, involving a complicated relationship with her uprooted adolescent son, Marco (Matheo Labbé).
Born in Buenos Aires, the César and Cannes award winner Béjo can relate to the gravity of the script, her parents having fled Argentina when she was a toddler. She hints that the story spawns further conversation about the values at the core of such bold resistance.
“Having an Argentine family that left because of the dictatorship helped me to work on my role, to try to understand the things that my mother didn’t tell me, that my father didn’t tell me. It’s very difficult to speak up. This film helped me to understand things about my family, secrets, everything. It urged me to talk to my family about what happened there. They didn’t tell me much, but the little they told me helped me to portray Maria,” she told Variety .
While not entirely autobiographical, Diaz admits that his experience as a child with a mother who dove head-first into the fight, ran slightly parallel to Marco’s. Wanting to give a fuller portrait of those who choose activism over all else, he made the decision to write the script from Maria’s point-of-view, essentially, a layered approach that allows the viewer to feel both disdain and high regard for her character.
“The truth is, if you put yourself in the child’s shoes, the only thing you ask of her is to be a mom. That was just what I didn’t want to do. I think the complexity comes from the fact that she has many layers, from the fact that she’s the militant and it’s not a simple layer, it’s an important layer, in the sense that it’s what gives meaning to her life,” he relayed.
Bejo, also a mother, grappled with the very sentiments the script reveals, nearly impossible dichotomy between honing maternal instincts alongside a humanity that transcends them.
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“I think having to choose between your child and fighting for an idea of democracy, of freedom, is very difficult,” Béjo mused. Adding, “There are people who think about things far larger than themselves. Those people manage to have a vision more important than anything else, than their family, their microcosm. I don’t know today, if I had to choose, what I would choose. You never know. But, I understood that character who’s fighting for her son to have access to a better, freer, more democratic world. That’s really very important.”
Scenes are frantic, as the characters live shrouded in anxiety, unable to make friends and forced apart from those they love. Maria acts as an unsung hero, whose life’s work takes place in the shadows, work often attributed to men in the movement, another plot choice that sets the project apart.
“Something I find interesting is this multiplicity of maternity, the idyllic figure of the mother, of the protector. I found it interesting to break that mold, because she also has the right to put her child in a safe place and say: I can still be this mother, not the common version of a mother, not the mother you expect. Within the revolutionary movement, fathers always left. Many fathers didn’t even ask themselves the question, they left and that was it,” Diaz explained.
“Mexico 86” is the story of a dissident, but also an affecting glance at strained mother and son dynamics born of Maria’s dedication to a cause. Each moment of tension, stretched out to relay the way the absence has traumatized them both, never to be solved for. The scenes are a set of frenzied watershed moments that come together, neither romanticizing the lifestyle or shying from the agony inherent of it.
To establish the distant relationship between Maria and Marco onscreen, Diaz admits to keeping the actors separated before filming. Having once thought of sending Labbé to live with Béjo before the shoot so that they could be familiar with one another, the director pivoted and the unfamiliar way they connect onscreen-in scenes that were shot chronologically-provides a palpable and natural void between them.
In the end, the film centers an uphill fight, that despite all of its nuisance, seems a fight well worth the personal upheaval.
“This film resonates with our modern struggles. It questions what we put at stake in order to transform the society in which we live, how far we’re willing to commit ourselves, willing to give something to be able to see a transformation,” Diaz comments. “Deep down, Maria had the will to build something for the new generation, it wasn’t just a ‘selfish me’ thing, something that gave meaning to her life, she was also working to build a better world for others to live in.”
“You have to have a lot of courage to dedicate your life to others, not everyone can do it. So, we have to thank the people who do, thank goodness there are those people. Everybody doesn’t have that courage. That’s just the way the world is, isn’t it? Everyone has their own story, their own destiny. Taking on a character like Maria, so big, so strong, it makes you think a little bit, it makes you think of the bigger picture,” Béjo added.
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