On the Road

Veneno is young and belongs nowhere. He hangs about the roadside diners; he goes with the truck drivers and finds somewhere to sleep. He urgently needs money. He meets a driver: Muñeco is long haul, quiet, a man with an order of his own. The two set off together. A long route across Mexico; petrol stations, lay-bys, border towns and waiting. Something builds between them and neither of them names it. David Pablos directs. It is a Mexican production. The setting is the road; the cab of the truck is almost the only living space and the film does not leave it. Pablos had made films about the border and violence in Mexico before; this is a more personal narrative. The matter it treats is shelter; neither character has anywhere to go and the relationship is built on that need. The narrative shows sexuality directly and does not build it as a taboo. The economy of the truck routes is inside the narrative: smuggling, payments and the drivers' working conditions. The ending is left uncertain and the narrative promises nothing. Who it is for: viewers who like Latin American independent cinema and road films. Who it is not for: the pace is slow, little happens, and some scenes are explicit.