Sonora

Predicable, cliched but still watchable. One of those films in which if something can go wrong then it surely will. Also, one of those films where somehow life, decency and goodness prevails - at least most of the time.

The movie, set during the great depression of the 1939s, is about a diverse group of Mexicans traveling - nay smuggling themselves - across the border to the US.

This journey through the thankless Sonora Desert brings out different elements from each character: the Indian man trying to defeat his demons; a Chinese Mexican and his wife and young daughter escaping racist persecution; a couple of stranded bootleggers; a young girl yet to experience life; and a few more along the way.

Sonora is as much a social commentary as it is entertainment. It's short, not so sharp, but an acceptable no frills film.

I'd dare to say that this movie is a failed attempt to assert a political message by drawing on historical events and manipulating them. The acting is pathetic, cheesy and over-dramatic. The whole movie is filled with cliches and unnecessary conflicts, so much that it reminded me of the kind of poorly written prose my professors warned me to stay away from. The world isn't just black and white - it is obnoxious to state that all rich men are good and all poor men are bed, but at the same time it is quite stupid to declare that all rich men are evil and all poor men are good. This is what this movie does: sailing from one prejudice to the other, while constantly claiming to denounce "racism" and "discrimination". Left-winged naivety at its best.

This Mexican film is passable, it has good actors, a correct plot and good settings.

As a European, i know nothing about the desert or the politics in 1930. Even this movie was so foreign for me, it was really beautiful and i enjoyed it a lot. It is nice to learn new cultures.

Uneven but nonetheless worthwhile. Besides some surprising acting and the Sonora's desert deathly beauty, this film's unquestionable merit is uncovering an buried chapter in Mexican history: the sistematic persecution of Chinese immigrants in the 1930s.