Hijo de Sicario

I got the opportunity to watch Sujo online at Sundance. It's by far the best one I saw throughout the fest! A shame I couldn't catch tickets earlier.

It tells the story of a boy, Sujo growing up in the Mexican countryside. His father is killed, he is a member of a cartel and Sujo manages to survive and grows up with his aunt Nemesia. There in the isolation he builds up his moral character and a fear of becoming his father. As he gets into adolescence the cartels catch up with him and his two best friends so he flees to the city in search of a different life.

No cheap thrills here, pure cinema at its best. In its core it is a Bildungsroman, a character study that let us see the consequences of the drug wars in the new generations. Dickensian in the mix of tools they used to achieve closeness with Sujo.

Stunning actors, stunning cinematography and score.

A coming of age masterpiece!

This film is a very delicate portrait of a young man that was born in a very difficult reality: gang violence in Mexico. The boy becomes an orphan when his father, a murderer himself, is killed. He grows up under his shadow but taken care by many different characters that help him overcome many obstacles. Is he the master of his destiny? Or is he a servant of an impending fate?. A man is self made or is he just his past and context?. This film doesn't provide answers but raises a very powerful question that really resonates. Beautifully crafted, powerful performances and a mysterious namesake, Sujo. Must see. Watched at 2024 HKIFF.

This is a film that let you accompany Sujo on his journey of self determination. From being in danger as a boy due to his father involvement in the Mexican mafia to him being followed by a shadow that looms large over his life. You see this story of a young boy being rescued by women but also by his own good nature. The camera hides with him as he tries to save his life and later on follows him in the countryside, poverty also has beauty through a boy's perspective. What a story, it speaks tons to me. Watched it at Pingyao Film Festival and got the chance to get an autograph from one of the directors. A rare triumph a film full of wisdom.

Of course this is an authentic social drama, but not really crime though, because you won't find here any action and bloody sequences. It is only a psychological and social study of a young boy whose father was a sicario, a hired killer for the Mexican cartels. This movie is not SICARIO, I repeat, nor the adaptation of a Don Winslow's novel. This is not destined to wide audiences, and only selected folks can appreciate such a little gem. I would have prefered another kind of ending. But that remains a beautiful film, splendidly done. I will never see this film again, but don't misunderstand the content of my review. It is worth the discovery. It deserves to be seen. Not a movie produced to make the gross, and that's the most important.

A revenge killing in a remote Mexican town leaves the already motherless young "Sujo" (Kevin Aguilar) an orphan. Luckily for him, his aunt "Neme" (Yadira Pérez) rescues him from the same vengeful fate and brings him up determined that he will resist the temptations of the town that might lead him to follow in his father's footsteps. That's no easy task as his close friends soon end up involved with the local cartel and so she sends the now teenage lad to find work in the vastness of their capital. Here he (now Juan Jesús Varela) begins to yearn for an education, and befriends the teacher "Susan" (Sandra Lorenzano) but the visit of his childhood friend "Jai" (Alexis Varela) reminds him that it's going to be very difficult to cut the ties with his past. This is really quite a touching depiction of a life born into a society that's tight, loyal and violent. Depart from the established order of things and life soon becomes worthless, existence perilous and it's an entire family that can become a target. The young Aguilar sets up the characterisation really quite effectively as an innocent young boy caught up in a maelstrom of events that leaves him rudderless and alone before morphing into the older character whom Varela continues to develop delicately into a young man whose goals, conviction and innate decency might just help him break from the cycle of hopelessness. Pérez also delivers strongly playing on a combination of the practical and the mystical as she strives to keep the lad, and his friends, on a different track - despite the obvious temptations of the bright lights and the money they bring. His late father had a car. A fancy one, at that, and when the young man learns to drive it it might offer him a route out or a route in...? It's a slowly paced affair, this, but essentially it's about choices and brave ones at that. The status quo brings acceptance, brutality and normalcy; a new life requires unsettling changes and risks almost as great. There are no easy wins for this young man.