Mexico 86

The goal of a revolutionary cause comes up against a strike force of maternal responsibilities in Mexico 86 as writer/director César Diaz wraps a story of mother/son tensions within a thriller framework.

A decade before the year of the title rolls round we’re in Guatemala. Activist Maria (Bérénice Béjo) watches her husband get executed in the street by the military dictatorship’s police as she clutches her baby to her chest. It’s a gripping and economical set-up, which also features snatches of grim archive footage from the time to underline its authenticity.

Forced to flee to Mexico, Maria faces a stark choice - send her son to a ‘hive’ in Cuba or leave him with her mother Eugenia (Julieta Egurrola). Unsurprisingly, she opts for the latter. This may be the sort of set-up that has fuelled many a hard-boiled exploration of Latin American dictatorships, but Diaz is more interested in the effect that all of this has on Maria’s personal life than he is in her impact on the political sphere.

He fast-forwards ten years to find Maria is, for the most part, living under the assumed name of Julia in Mexico with her partner Miguel (Leonardo Ortizgris). The pair of them are as dedicated to the revolutionary cause - and in Maria’s case a wide variety of disguise wigs - as ever, and she is embedded at a news outlet as a copy proofer.

Her son Marco (Matheo Labbé), now 10, is on one of his periodic clandestine visits to see her when the equilibrium shifts. Maria’s mum is terminally ill and Marco must move to live with her. Diaz has drawn partially on his relationship with his own mother and the specificity of place and time also help the tensions to feel authentic - Star Wars and Maradona references help to cement the time period. Initially, Marco doesn’t really want to stay with his mother, not least because he wants to look after his gran but there is a gradual reconnection as he discovers the parent that lies beneath the revolutionary disguise.

Béjo - who has no problem with the Latin American Spanish accent - also has real-life experience that is relatable to the film, since her own parents fled the dictatorship of Argentina, and she puts in the sort of intense and watchful performance that Jodie Foster used to give to this type of role. While her character desperately wants to be a better mother, she is also a fully committed revolutionary, which provides the push and pull of loyalties that drives the film. As Maria finds herself trying to get an expose of torture and killings in Guatemala published, the heat begins to turn up and she realises that her son may also be facing an existential threat due to her commitment - and begins to wonder what level she might go to in an act of desperation to boot.

Although the thriller elements make for a couple of nice set pieces, including a sweaty car chase, the conflict Maria is facing is brought home much more forcefully in more domestic scenes, such as when Marco is running a temperature but she refuses to take him to see a doctor or when he can only speak to his sick gran on the phone for a couple of timed minutes in case the phone is tapped. Gradually, Marco’s story starts to take dominance as his coming-of-age begins to shape his relationship with his mother and he starts his own revolution of sorts. Labbé brings depth to his character as he gradually realises what his mother’s commitment to a cause means to both of them.

Beyond the central relationship, Diaz gives a sense of the weariness that comes with freedom fighting. There’s nothing exhilarating about the sensation you could, at any moment, die for the cause, and yet Maria’s commitment scarcely wavers, even when Miguel suggests a different path. The thriller element may be what hooks us in but it’s the film’s emotional drama that keeps us on the line, through to an ending that is as well targeted as anything delivered by a gun.