This is an original, intriguing and, in my view, enjoyable film. It starts conventionally enough, with US border guards trying to catch illegal Mexican migrants. Paul Mescal plays an ex-marine, volunteer border guard. He saves a young female dancer called Carmen from being killed. She is played by an excellent newcomer Melissa Barrera. They go on the run together. From here on the film takes a whimsical turn involving rather a lot of rather good dancing. If you like flamenco dancing, you get some of that. Even Paul Mescal does some energetic dancing. I loved the film score. I found the film quite uplifting.
Hats off if you make it to the end of this load of over-praised arthouse baloney. Well done if you even make it through the pre-credits sequence without zapping. An old woman strikes poses, stamps her feet and flails her arms in the Chihuahua desert. In Spain it’s called dancing. Some similarly unimpressed bloke arrives and shoots her. If only it was meant to be funny. As for the rest of the film… Sullen cardboard characters move from one longueur to another interrupted by prancing around various floor spaces. And what makes it even worse is the incessant heavenly choir score. Where’s that bloke from the pre-titles sequence when you need him? To see how to film flamenco, watch Caros Saura’s exciting 1981 film Blood Wedding.
Romeo and Juliet type musical set on the Mexican border. She is a migrant, he is border patrol. The movie is interspersed with dance episodes, really very enjoyable. There is also the ugliest auntie of indeterminate gender on the planet.