Red Dawn

2 October 1968, Mexico City. The film takes place in one apartment. A middle class family: a retired civil servant father, the mother, the grandfather, two sons at university and two small children. Outside, there is a student rally in the Tlatelolco square. As the day goes on the sounds come nearer. Then there is a knock at the door. Jorge Fons directs. The cast includes Héctor Bonilla, María Rojo, Eduardo Palomo and Demián Bichir. The event is real. Ten days before the 1968 Olympics the Mexican army and security forces opened fire on the student rally at Tlatelolco; the number of dead is still not known and the state denied it for years. The method is never to show it. The camera does not leave the flat; the massacre exists through sound, the telephone and what can be seen from the window. The choice has to do with the budget and with the idea of the film alike. It was blocked in Mexico for a long time. Finished in 1989, censorship kept it from release until 1990, and it counts as the first Mexican film to take on Tlatelolco directly. The narrative offers no political explanation; even the differences of view within the family come through ordinary conversation. It runs under ninety minutes and the single location is kept deliberately closed. Who it is for: viewers who follow Latin American political cinema and single location drama. Who it is not for: the subject is heavy, the ending is merciless, and some scenes are incomplete without the historical context.