La Zona
It’s a sunny day, as the camera glides along suburban streets of row after row of immaculate houses flanked by manicured lawns. It could be any upper-middle class neighbourhood.
But it isn’t. For as the camera pans further forward then upward, it trails a concrete wall. Atop the wall, is barbed wire, and over the other side, are the slums.
This is Mexico, and we have just been shown a preview of a gated community. Actually, gated community is a misnomer. A gated community is one to which access is gained with the swipe of an electrical security card.
This is not a community, but a fortress: self-governed by its citizens, and protected by guards who are employed to keep watch at security checkpoints. A high tech security hub is lined with monitors that capture the footage of the “community’s” many cameras, and is staffed by even more security personnel, who keep a watchful eye on the town.
All’s well until a power outage causes a security breach, enabling a number of youths from the slums to enter the hallowed zona. They brazenly commit a burglary that goes pear-shaped, leaving a zona resident and two of the youths dead, and another, Miguel, trapped in the wealthy neighbourhood.
The fallout from this turn of events is disturbing, to say the least. The residents of La Zona adopt a vigilante approach, vowing to hunt down and kill the young intruder. But in order to retain their self-governing status, they must conceal their plan from law-enforcement officers.
Disturbingly, a number of the inhabitants’ sons, dressed in their smart private school uniforms, take up arms and set out to hunt down the intruder. This display of behaviour that has been clearly modelled on the attitudes and behaviour of their parents is startling. One boy, Alejandro (Daniel Tovar), finds himself torn, as his parents (Cocho and Verdù) have markedly different views about the situation, which is reflected in their son’s ambivalence.
Meanwhile, the missing boy’s mother endures an agonising wait, over the other side of the wall, for news of her son. Tragically, she is dismissed both by the police, and the citizens of the exclusive community.
Can the situation be defused before it gets out of hand, and will the boy manage to escape the fortress and its savage inhabitants? Furthermore, how will the residents be able to look each other in the eye when all of this is over? Plá seems to suggest that hope lies solely with our youth, who are malleable enough to shrug off their parents’ bigotry, and learn new and more respectful ways of treating each other.
Rodrigo Plá’s debut feature is a thought-provoking study of the ever-increasing polarity between the wealthy and the poor (is the poverty-stricken youths’ crime an act of trespassing and burglary, or rebellion against the hopelessness of their situation?). It also highlights the paranoia and suspicion with which those who lead privileged lives treat those who are not so lucky, and the propensity for humans, no matter how advanced the civilization in which they live, to descend all too readily into sickening mob mentality. Finally, Miguel’s desperate attempts to flee the gated community and return to the slums he calls home, is a metaphor for the alienation of today’s impoverished youth, who are deprived of the opportunities that their affluent counterparts too frequently take for granted.