Tigers Are Not Afraid movie review (2019)
One important element that separates “Tigers” from a masterpiece like “Backbone” is that López’s film is not a period piece. For a lot of viewers, it will feel like something they can’t relate to, but it tells a very current story, especially given how much the drug war on the border of Mexico and the state of immigration dominates our political discourse. López opens by reminding us how many people have been murdered and disappeared in Mexico since 2006, when the drug war intensified and riddled the air with violence to such a degree that there are entire cities that have become ghost towns.
Our story is set in one of these cities, where children have been orphaned by the violence that surrounds them, forming a sort of “lost boys” group of their own on a rooftop. They steal food and the supplies to keep them alive, and they’re led by an angry young man named Shine (Juan Ramon López). In an early scene, Shine steals a phone and a gun from a local thug named Caco (Ianis Guerrero), and nearly shoots him in the back. Not long after this decision, a quiet girl named Estrella (the incredible Paola Lara, whose commitment holds the whole film together) comes home after a school shooting to find her mother is missing. She joins Shine’s gang, and they tell Estrella that her mother was likely kidnapped and either trafficked or murdered. And then Caco and his men come looking for his phone.
You may be wondering how fantasy plays into such a dark, realist narrative. López opens with a teacher asking her students to write a fairy tale, and some of the elements of that instruction weave their way through the film. There’s a mysterious blood trail that follows Estella; she is haunted by something in the shadows that may or may not be her mother; she’s even been granted three wishes, which will play major roles in how her story unfolds. While some filmmakers would have used the magical elements of Estella’s life to provide an escape from reality, López is more interested in using them to enhance the danger and symbolism of her story. Don’t come into this wanting answers about what’s real and what isn’t—you won’t find them. López merges the horrors of real life with fairy tale structures and storytelling in a way that’s ambitious and consistently fascinating.
