The Chosen Ones

Ulises and Sofía are in love. But Ulises's family runs a business in Tijuana forcing women into prostitution, and Ulises's job is to find girls. He brought Sofía in. When he wants to get her out, his family sets a condition: find someone to replace her. David Pablos writes and directs. The film screened in Un Certain Regard at Cannes in 2015. Pablos's narrative choice is what marks it. He does not show the violence. There are rooms, doors, waiting, ordinary conversation, and what happens keeps happening outside the frame, understood through sound and aftermath. This is not avoidance. It is the opposite: this is how the business runs, routine and invisible. The cast was drawn largely from non professionals and the film was shot in real locations. At its centre is a moral knot: Ulises is not a victim, he is a perpetrator. Wanting to save the girl he loves does not make him good, because the price of saving her is another girl's life. Who it is for: viewers following Mexican independent cinema and films that treat trafficking at a cold distance. Who it is not for: the subject is heavy and the film offers no relief anywhere. It is not a story that ends well.