Sujo

Sujo's father is killed when the boy is four; the man carried guns for a cartel. His aunt takes him and raises him in the countryside where nobody will find him. The years pass. Sujo grows up and is at school with boys doing his father's work. There is no other work in the town; the cartel gathers the young and nobody says no. His aunt sends him to the city. Sujo enters the university, tells nobody where he comes from, and his past follows him. Astrid Rondero and Fernanda Valadez wrote and directed. Juan Jesus Varela, Yadira Perez, Sandra Lorenzano and Alexis Varela are in the cast. It is a Mexican production. The film won the grand jury prize of the world cinema dramatic section at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. The two directors' previous film had been awarded at the same festival and also dealt with the violence in Mexico. The narrative is divided into parts and each part carries the name of another character. The matter it treats is the cycle; the film asks whether violence is a fate and gives no easy answer. It shows the cartel so little as to be almost not at all; the threat is always outside and unseen. The countryside of Michoacan stands inside the film like a separate character. The narrative proposes a way out through literature and language and does not force it. The ending offers no close. Its limit is pace; the narrative is slow, the link between the parts is loose, and the dramatic weight scattered. Who it is for: viewers who like Latin American cinema and quietly moving drama. Who it is not for: it is slow, sombre, and the ending unresolved.