Mexico 86 by César Diaz is the tension-fraught story of a mother’s love for her child versus fighting for freedom for the next generation, set against the unseen World Cup.
Maria's Choice
by Alexa DalbyMexico 86
CAUTION: Here be spoilers
Director César Diaz mines his personal life and traumas again for a film as he did in Nuestras Madres, for which he was awarded the Caméra d’or. Diaz was born in Guatemala, his mother was a guerrilla fighter, his father ‘disappeared’ and he was taken to Mexico at the age of eight.
“Making this film meant confronting the armed struggle waged by my mother and the fact of her being a mother. Activists dedicate their lives to societal transformation, but there is often no room to fulfil their roles as parents.” – César Diaz
Diaz is a documentary maker: Mexico 86‘s sole plot line is linear. It is mainly set in 1986 when Mexico is about to host the World Cup. The central character is the mother, Maria (Bérénice Bejo) and the film is dedicated to Diaz’s mother.
Maria, the mother figure, is a committed revolutionary activist and guerrilla fighter against the Guatemalan government. We first see her when whe is forced to flee to Mexico as an emergency when her son Marco is just a baby. She can never return to Guatemala, where she is a wanted terrorist. She leaves him with her mother (Julieta Egurrola), as she cannot face the thought of losing him, by sending him to a collective ‘hive’ in Cuba.
But eight years later when circumstances change and her mother is not well enough to look after Marco (Matheo Labbé) any longer, the boy comes to live with his mother in Mexico: it’s all very different for him.
The film details their lives and strained relationship now. Maria lives in hiding with Miguel (Leonardo Ortizgris), who tries to bond with Marco over football and the World Cup. She lives in fear of government agents who still track her – there’s a tense scene in Mexico City’s futuristically shot metro station and a car chase that turns into a gun battle, both shot from her point of view. Even years later she still has to disguise herself and to pack and move urgently when where she lives is discovered.
Marco is the weakest link in Maria’s new life in Mexico – to increase his bewilderment and sense of resentment, as well as leaving his grandmother and his friends, he has to be given a new identity, and this he finds hardest to accept.
Twice – when her son is a baby and again when he is eight – Maria has to choose between her dangerous activism and her family. What decisions does she make?
It’s unusual for a political activist to be portrayed as a driven woman, regimented into having to take military-type orders about her life from a male fellow guerrilla (Fermín Martínez). It must have been quite a coup for Diaz to cast an acclaimed actress such as Argentinian-born, Spanish-speaking, Oscar-nominated Bérénice Bejo in the role of Maria, possibly raising the film to another level. We see the consequences of Maria’s idealism even years later, her continued dedication to her cause and the sacrifices she has had to make and still makes.
Mexico 86 is a fascinating, emotional and tension-filled story, intensified by music by Rémi Boubal and cinematography by Virginie Surdej, though rather simplistic in places. Bérénice Bejo as Maria is compelling. The film makes your heart race but, although it is very realistic, perhaps the story and characters could be processed more from real-life events into film. Sadly, the political instability portrayed in the film in Central and South America is still a topical theme.
Mexico 86 premiered at the Locarno Film Festival on 10 August 2024. International sales are by Goodfellas and international representation by The PR Factory.
