Noise

Gertrudis disappeared nine months ago. She set off with her friends to celebrate her graduation and no word came again. Her mother Julia has been everywhere; to the prosecutor's office, opening a file, filing petitions, and none of it has worked. Now she is searching herself. On the road she meets other mothers; they are searching too and most have been for years. A journalist helps her. Then she joins the groups who dig for mass graves. Nobody promises her anything. The system does not work and everyone knows it. Natalia Beristáin directs; she wrote the screenplay with Diego Enrique Osorno and Alo Valenzuela Escobedo. Julieta Egurrola plays Julia; Teresa Ruiz, Kenya Cuevas and Jimena González are in the cast. It is a Mexican and Argentine co-production. Beristáin cast her own parents; Julieta Egurrola and Alfredo Beristáin are her mother and father. The film screened at the San Sebastián Film Festival and afterwards went out on Netflix. The matter it treats is the women who disappear in Mexico; the film gives it not as a detective story but as a process of searching. The narrative stands between fiction and documentary; in some sections real activists play themselves. The film caused argument in Mexico and drew hard reactions for its subject. The narrative offers no resolution and the search does not end. The ending closes on a scene of solidarity; the group comes forward in place of the individual. Its limit is the watching; the subject is heavy, the narrative offers no hope, and some scenes are hard to bear. Who it is for: viewers who like Mexican cinema and drama close to documentary. Who it is not for: it is bleak, shattering, and the ending offers no resolution.