Just Playing with the Birds

Though it seems so close, the promised land of the United States remains completely out of reach for many Mexicans. Elderly Ezequiel remembers just swimming across the river whenever he wanted to work in the U.S. for a few years. These days, it’s not so simple. Human-trafficking gangs extort astronomical sums for the hazardous journey. And those who do make it to the other side of the border wouldn’t dare return to visit their families and risk getting caught by the American immigration service. Were things really better in the old days? Not really – Ezequiel never went to school, but had to work from an early age at the same hacienda where his grandfather earned 18 cents a day. He got his first pair of shoes when he was 17. Now the land he inherited from all that hard work is drying out – there hasn’t been any rain for 11 months. The cattle are starving, unemployment is rife and the criminal gangs are becoming ever more violent. What can you do but wait? For rain, for work, for freedom. For better times. In long, listless shots, director Simona Canonica captures the merciless drought and the apathy of the Mexican countryside – a fractious, dusty desert between dreams and reality.