Daniel & Ana

A brother and sister fall victim to an express kidnapping, during which they are hideously violated. (Although several reviews specify what happens, I think it's better not to give it away. Suffice to say the kidnappers borrow a page from the Japanese army's Nanking handbook.) The film follows the aftermath of this abuse, showing how the siblings' character and behaviour are altered. Except for a surprising reprise of the horror, there are few actual events in the balance of the film. Much of what we see on screen is the protagonists acting surly and withdrawn, avoiding people or giving monosyllabic responses. (The clueless parents see both their children begin to behave out of character at the same time but never seem to consider that there might be a common cause.) I believe it would take truly superior actors to infuse this script with the drama befitting the characters' experience and in my opinion, Bernal and Vega are not up to it. This may be a minority opinion, since other viewers have found their performances compelling. Of course, the script doesn't give them a whole lot to work with and bears the lion's share of the responsibility for the tedium of the siblings' goings-on. However, the kidnapping scene could, by all rights, have showcased first class dramatic skills and the leaden acting we see there tells us the actors have a long way to go. (The leads do shine by comparison to their captors, though. It is hard to watch the kidnapper give his spiel and not think of Hannah Arendt's phrase "the banality of evil." Considering the capabilities of these actors, I believe making that scene so detailed showed poor judgment.) One thing worth highlighting is that this film is closer to a vignette than a structured narrative. Despite some indications to the contrary, I believe there is no culminating climax or resolution--it is pretty flat after the kidnapping. The film is supposedly based on a true story and may hew very close to real life, which, of course, is seldom a structured narrative. That may be some viewers' cup of tea; if it isn't yours, think twice about seeing this film. In short, there is a disparity between the film's subject matter and the execution. The premise is not for the faint of heart but its enormous dramatic potential is dissipated in flat, repetitive scenes.

The story is good. The fact that it is condemning a real problem makes it even better. For a while, I thought it was going to be a powerful film, but it was not. You will find yourself counting the minutes for the movie to end. The preamble to the peak moment is boring, then less than 20 minutes of a good sequence, perfectible, but good enough, considering the roughness of the situation. That's it. The rest is dull, repetitive, and flat. The plot offered plenty to work with. The story is claimed to be real, thus there were many other things they could have shown, expressed, and exposed to move the audience. However, all the opportunities were wasted with a weak and God-fearing approach to the post-traumatic behavior. They lost it. Toward the end, another dramatic moment is featured as an irrelevant inconvenience solved with Ana giving the cold shoulder to her brother. They took the easy way to solve the conflict. It is fair to say that the photography is flawless. Marimar Vega's performance is the best of the film.

Apparently this film is based on real events as it's illustrated in the opening text of the film. The plot synopsis made it sound a lot more thrilling, suspenseful and disturbing then how it eventually became. It turned out to be a depressing drama.

The incident of the kidnapping and the actual act between the siblings occurred quite early (around 20 - 25 mins) which looked and felt relatively realistic. We are later noted that it was apart of a certain adult film series of sorts. The scene is quite lengthy as nudity of both actors are shown. It isn't too graphic. It's the actual thought of the act which is the disturbing part. Aside from this, there isn't any other tense scene (save for a bizarre and random rape scene towards the end (1:06:40)- which felt entirely out of place).

The acting by the lead of Daniel was rather weak as we could tell he didn't have much experience (apparently this was his very first role). The character seemed like the typical shy quiet teenager at first barely speaking then as the film progressed he seemed more like a psycho. The acting by the actress of Ana was a lot better.

After the incident occurred there was over an hour left of film and the remaining time was simply both characters moping around looking sad, depressed and traumatized by the incident. Although the incident was traumatic we wonder why neither of them told their parents, or Ana not telling her fiancé. She only tells a therapist but even so she didn't give her real name.

The film just has a depressing and dull feel. The two siblings act like it was the end of the world. If anything they were extremely lucky the kidnappers didn't kill them. They seemed to give them back their items (phones/wallets) and did no physical harm. Was expecting something entirely worse but they were ultimately left untouched. Perhaps the motives of the brother Daniel was due to jealousy of his sisters fiancé. The rape scene felt out of place and they didn't exactly discuss it later. Perhaps we are led to believe he had feelings for her which is why he did that? Overall this film feels like they could have done more and went a little more extreme. It ultimately felt tame.

DANIEL & ANA is based on a true incident, and reveals a relatively unknown aspect of The Porn Industry. The thesis of the film is that, especially in South and Central America, some individuals engaging in online pornography may not be willing participants. Although the film is darkly bleak and disturbing, it presents an unfortunate aspect of human behavior. If an individual has been subjected to extreme sexual or psychological horror, they might not react in a way that one would ordinarily expect. I think that many people who have commented on this film have failed to recognize this important fact. The behavior that Daniel engages in after the event, although wildly inappropriate, is not in any way out of the realm of possibility. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is not easily 'cured', or even understood, and can cause significant impairment in all aspects of human functioning.

Maybe I'm so disappointed cause everyone sells Michel Franco as one of the best directors of his time. Nothing could be further from the truth. This is a bad movie, that's it, the story could've been read from the local newspaper, no need to make a movie just to watch an actress without clothes, it seems that Michel Franco directed this movie only to feed his morbid curiosity of doing a pornographic movie. Bad acting + bad photography = bad director. In the first. The first scenes are super tedious, showing a unrealistic boring life. Mexico City offers much more than what they portray, there's no caos in that city. The incongruous and unreal scenarios, playing with the theory of how people from organized crime use you is near stupidity, it's like filming criminal theories that we would like to happen, but the harsh reality is not like that, reality surpasses fiction, and if you are not willing to project the harsh reality it is better not to announce the story as a real fact. People who have been victims of crimes of this type must be very angry to see this, no one has been as lucky as these characters, this story is unreal, you can ask any kidnapping victim.