The Zone

In the middle of Mexico City there is a walled estate. Inside it, its own security, cameras and rules apply; it has nothing to do with what is outside. During a storm an advertising hoarding falls onto the wall and a gap opens. Three young men get in. A woman dies, two of them are shot and the third hides inside the estate. The residents meet. Instead of calling the police they make their own decision: the boy will be found and the matter settled internally. One family objects. Outside, a policeman wants to look into it and cannot get in. Rodrigo Plá directs; it is his first feature. Daniel Giménez Cacho, Daniel Tovar, Alan Chávez and Carlos Bardem are in the cast. It is a Mexican and Spanish co-production. The film won the first feature award at the 2007 Venice Film Festival and took two prizes there; it also won the FIPRESCI prize in Toronto. The matter it treats is private security and a community setting up its own law; the estate works like a state. The narrative does not show the residents as a single block; there is a division inside as well. The premise is a single location; almost all of it takes place inside the walls. The narrative does not introduce the boy or put him at the centre; its real subject is the people looking for him. Gated estates are a real thing in Mexico and the film looks at that directly. The ending gives no easy moral conclusion and the order does not change. Its limit is tone; the narrative is harsh, the characters cold, and the film offers no hope. Who it is for: viewers who like Mexican cinema and social thrillers. Who it is not for: it is bleak, hard, and the ending bitter.