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Michel Franco (Mexico, 1979) debuted with the thriller Daniel & Ana (2009) and rose to prominence with
Despues de Lucia/ After Lucia (2012), a rape drama that is as terrifying
as a horror movie.
At the end of the film, we are left with the feeling that justice has not been done, and it is not clear how it could be done. It is human nature that is being indicted.
Roberto picks up his car at the body shop. They had to fix a lot of things in the car. But then he drops the car in the middle of the road and walks away on foot.
When then see a 17-year-old girl, Alejandra, at the sea.
We then see them together in a new car that Roberto is driving.
They move to a new city and a new apartment.
While he is unpacking, Roberto suddenly starts crying.
Alejandra starts classes in her new school and meets a handsome boy, Jose'.
She tells the kids
that her mother is back home in her old town.
Roberto is a chef and is opening a restaurant in their new city, but is clearly
unhappy.
The school administers a drug test to every new student and Alejandra tests
positive to marijuana. They summon Roberto and recommend a rehabilitation program. Later Alejandra tells her father the truth, that she has been smoking it for
three months with friends. He doesn't seem disturbed.
Roberto speaks on the phone with someone about a bill for a funeral.
Later, he tells his business partner that he wants to quit.
And finally we learn the truth: his wife died in a car accident
while she was teaching Alejandra how to drive.
Driving home, he gets into a fistfight with someone who cuts in front of him.
Alejandra spends the weekend with rich friends, enjoys a jacuzzi with them, drink alcohol, and they insist that she smokes weeds, even though this will result in expulsion from school. She cries a little but then, drunk and high, has sex with Jose'. Back home, she turns on
her laptop and realizes that Jose' has filmed their sexual encounter.
The following morning she finds an excuse not to go to school: all the kids have seen the video. Jose' swears to Alejandra that he didn't distribute the video: someone else found his phone and did it.
However, the atmosphere at school is toxic.
At home, she doesn't say anything to her father.
Two kids even assault her in the school's bathroom.
Summoned by the principal, Alejandra doesn't admit what happened because she
would have to explain why they assaulted her.
The bullying continues at home.
Even two girls bully her and beat her up, calling her "a slut".
Her father went back to work at the restaurant and knows nothing of this.
He told Alejandra that he sold her mother's car, the car of the accident, but
instead the car is found with the keys in it (we saw him abandoning it).
Alejandra has a flashback of the accident.
At school the kids, both girls and boys, make her eat a disgusting cake
while calling her names.
She buys a bus ticket back to her old town without telling her father but at the last minute she doesn't board the bus.
Back home, she again doesn't tell anything to her father.
All the students are required to join a school trip to a seaside resort.
The girls in her room are treating her like a servant.
When she goes into the bathroom, they block the room and then steal from her bag.
They invite the guys in and party, with Alejandra still blocked in the bathroom.
Finally one of the boys opens the bathroom door and enters it, while the others
are playing loud music. When the kid comes out, they lock the bathroom door again so Alejandra remains inside. Another kid walks into the bathroom and this time
the camera shows us Alejandra lying motionless on the floor and the kid raping her.
Outside the other kids are partying. The kid comes out of the bathroom and calmly locks the door again. Late at night the kids move to the beach. They take
Alejandra and force her to drink alcohol. When someone asks to wake up Alejandra, of the boys even urinates on her.
Nobody shows any mercy for her. They play in the water in the dark until someone
realizes that Alejandra has disappeared.
The following morning the teachers call Roberto that is daughter is missing.
Alejandra is actually alive: she is on a bus to her old town.
Meanwhile, her father drives to the beach and joins the search for her.
He is frustrated that the police cannot investigate the kids who were with
her daughter because they are minors.
Roberto finds Alejandra's laptop and sees the video made by Jose'.
By interrogating the kids, Roberto slowly learns that her daughter was bullied.
Roberto takes the law into his hands. He kidnaps Jose', drives to the beach,
hires a boat and dumps him in the sea far away from the beach with his hands tied behind his back.
Roberto is probably convinced that Alejandra killed herself.
Roberto keeps going in the boat away from the beach.
Unbeknownst to him, Alejandra is sleeping in what is presumably her old house.
Franco turned to English for the cryptic drama Chronic (2015).
All the suspense is condensed in the last few seconds.
The rest is a rather static psychological portrait of a lonely guilt-ridden person.
A man follows a young woman and later browses photos of a Nadia on the Internet.
We then see a man washing a skeletal woman in the shower.
David is a nurse whose only job is to take care of Sarah, another young woman, but this one is dying of AIDS.
When she dies, he washes her with the same diligence as when she was alive.
Sarah's niece Karen notices him at the funeral.
Karen wants to ask him questions about Sarah but David rudely declines.
He spends the evening at a bar where he chats with a young couple. He tells them that he was married for 21 years to a woman named Sarah who died of AIDS.
He calls a number but doesn't say anything when a woman replies.
At home again he browses pictures of that Nadia.
His new patient is John, an elderly divorced architect who got paralyzed after suffering a stroke.
After learning what John does, David gets interested in architecture. He walks into a bookstore and pretends to be an architect.
When John watches a pornographic video on the laptop, David tolerates it and in
fact starts watching the videos with John.
John pretends to be John's brother to take a picture of a house that John designed, and then gives John the picture as a birthday gift.
John even works night shits that he is not supposed to do so that John can enjoy his videos.
But then the family finds out and they ask that David never gets near John again.
When David tries to visit John, his daughter doesn't let him in.
David drives to a campus and approaches Nadia. They hesitate to hike.
She's his daughter. He then meets with his ex-wife,
who has remarried and has divorced again.
David finds a new job taking care of a cancer patient, Martha.
When David visits Nadia again, they chat about Nadia's brother, who died young of a painful disease. The memory moves David to tears. He also feels guilty that
he has to decide to pull the plug.
One day Martha doesn't answer the door: she is too weak to move.
Another time she suddenly vomits while watching television.
Then the doctor tells her that the cancer is spreading, but she tells her
daughter the opposite so she doesn't have to worry.
She asks David to help her die like he helped her son die.
He refuses. She fires him. But then he comes back and
injects her something that kills her and makes it look like a heart attack.
David's next patient is a 16-year-old disabled boy.
This kid requires patience because he has a temper.
The camera follows David jogging for a long time. He seems very pensive.
Eventually, he runs a red light and a car hits him. But he looked at the
incoming traffic before crossing, so we suspect that he wanted to be hit.
Most cars drive by.
Las Hijas de Abril/ April's Daughters (2017)
is a stark Mexican drama in which a manipulative, long-absent mother reappears to "help" her pregnant teenage daughter, only to betray her by secretly arranging to take the newborn baby away for herself.
Nuevo Orden/ New Order (2020) is a dystopian thriller.
Sundown (2021) is an existential mystery
in which a wealthy and boring man abruptly abandons his family during a luxury vacation turning to a life of aimless hedonism.
Memory (2023) is a thriller
that artfully mixes alcohol addition, mental illness, rape,
sexual traumas and betrayal, and all of it against the background of
memory: who remembers the true past and who doesn't want to remember it?
It could have been a lot more powerful if the plot had introduced one last twist at the end. Instead the end is a typical "happy ending".
A group of recovering alcoholics praise Sylvia, a single mother with a 13-old-old daughter, Anna, who is standing next to her and says she's proud of her.
Sylvia is a social worker who works at an adult daycare center.
She lives in a bad neighborhood alone with Anna.
Her sister Olivia has a nice family and is financially stable, and offers Sylvia money to move to a better place. Olivia mentions that their mother would like to see Sylvia and we realize that Sylvia does not reciprocate.
Olivia and Sylvia attend a high-school reunion.
When Sylvia leaves the party, a man follows her silently to the subway and
then to her apartment. She sees from the window that he is still out in the street even if it starts raining. He sleeps inside a tire of the nearby tire shop.
Eventually she walks downstairs and confronts him.
She is used to people who lost their mind, although much older ones.
She sees he is wearing a necklace with emergency contacts and
makes a phone call and someone comes to pick up the man: Saul.
We now follow Saul. His brother Isaac and his niece Sarah are concerned that
Saul has occasional dementia. He doesn't remember being at the party and
following Sylvia. When Sylvia visits, apparently him out of curiosity,
Isaac and Sara tell her that Saul has problems remembering recent events.
Sylvia takes Saul to a park and tests his long-term memory.
They went to the same high school. He doesn't remember Sylvia but he remembers
a schoolmate named Ben when Sylvia brings him up. Sylvia tells Saul that Ben used to rape her when she was only 12 and he was 17. Saul is surprised. Sylvia adds that Saul too participated in the assaults. Saul too forced Sylvia to perform oral sex. Saul denies it.
Sylvia asks Saul why he followed her. The answer seems obvious to her.
She gets angry that he doesn't have an answer and doesn't remember raping her.
She steals his necklace with emergency contacts, telling him that he deserves
dementia.
But then she has second thoughts, walks back, looks for him in the park,
even cries when she can't find him, finally finds him,
returns the necklace without saying a word, and walks away.
Back home Saul browses his album of high-school pictures.
Sara visits Sylvia and tells her that she's leaving for school and they need
someone else to take care of Saul. Sara says that Saul is fond of her (Sylvia),
which is puzzling given their park incident.
Sara offers money to Sylvia upfront.
Sylvia does not explain why she refuses.
Sylvia has another problem: she found a joint in her daughter Anna's room and noticed that Anna changed the password on her computer.
Olivia searches yearbooks and finds out that Sylvia was wrong: Saul entered that high school after Sylvia had already been transferred to another one.
It appears that Saul's long-term memory is better than Sylvia's long-term memory.
Sylvia visits Saul and apologizes. Saul writes it down so he can remember it.
Sylvia mentions that her mom didn't believe her at the time of the rapes, but still transferred her to another school. We now understand why Sylvia doesn't talk to her mother.
Saul still can't explain why he followed her home after the party.
Now that she knows Saul is innocent,
Sylvia accepts the job to take care of Saul.
Back at Olivia's place, we learn that Sylvia
doesn't allow Anna to mingle with boys and is paranoid that Anna might drink alcohol, clearly traumatized by her own past.
We also learn that Sylvia stopped drinking when she got pregnant of Anna.
Sylvia starts "working" with Saul, which simply means to keep him company.
Saul can't even watch movies because he can't remember what happens scene to scene.
Olivia's and Sylvia's mother are concerned that Sylvia lives in a bad neighborhood.
Sylvia's mother accidentally meets Anna at Olivia's house: we understand that
Sylvia hid Anna from her granma.
Anna wants to go on a date but Sylvia forbids her. Anna complains that she is
the only girl in the class who doesn't have a boyfriend.
Clear Sylvia is terrified that her daughter would suffer the same fate that she suffered at her age.
One day she finds Saul lying naked on the floor of the bathroom.
They are becoming good friends.
Saul tells her of his wife who died (quote) "a long time ago".
Anna bonds with granma and of course Anna asks why granma and mom stopped talking. Granma tells Anna that Sylvia as a teenager got out of control and started lying and accusing people of horrible things. We now doubt who is telling the truth: Sylvia that she was raped or her mother who says that she lied?
One day Sylvia brings Anna to see Saul and the two bond.
One evening Sylvia falls asleep next to Saul and they hug.
In the morning Sara finds them in that tender position and Sylvia is embarrassed.
Sylvia is so alarmed by the episode that she quits the job.
And then she refuses to explain to Anna what happened.
Saul is devastated. Isaac starts taking care of him. One day Isaac leaves Saul
alone and Saul drives to Sylvia's place. Saul kisses her and Sylvia lets him do it.
Saul and Sylvia start seeing each other but Isaac disapproves and one night
barges into Sylvia's apartment and makes a scene.
It backfires because Sylvia and Saul become lovers. Saul moves out of Isaac's house despite Isaac warning him that he is not capable of making decisions.
Sylvia changes Saul's emergency contact in the necklace to her own phone number.
Meanwhile, Anna hears more of Sylvia's wild teenage years from granma whenever they meet at Olivia's house.
When Sylvia and Saul visit Olivia unannounced, granma is there. Sylvia gets
hysterical that Anna is being exposed to granma. Granma immediately criticizes
that Sylvia is living with a mentally ill man. Sylvia begs Olivia to confirm that
their father raped her as a child. Granma insists that Sylvia lies and has always been lying. Granma warns Saul that Sylvia is a sick woman.
Olivia's husband Robert takes granma's side because he doesn't like Sylvia's crude reference to rape.
This conversation happens in front of Anna. But then finally Olivia comes to Sylvia's defense and confirms that their father abused her.
Granma is the one who lied all the time, lied to Anna too, and has on her conscience that she never stopped her husband from raping her daughter.
Sylvia storms out of the house, followed by Saul and Anna.
Back home, Sylvia cries nonstop but Saul cheers her up.
Now Anna, who had started liking granma, is angry at Olivia for maintaining family ties with granma as if nothing happened.
When Sylvia is at work, Saul wanders out of the house. Sylvia gets a phone call
from the hospital. When she gets there, Isaac is already there and doesn't let her see Saul and later takes him back into his house. Saul doesn't return her calls.
Sylvia is not allowed to visit Saul, but Anna does. Saul is now assisted by
a full-time male nurse who behaves like a prison guard.
Saul, in tears, tells Anna that they confiscated his phone and limit his movements.
Anna basically kidnaps him while the nurse is not watching and takes him to
her house, to Sylvia.
Dreams (2025) is the chronicle of an erotic passion and also a glimpse into the psychologically and morally unbalanced, while apparently privileged, world of the wealthy.
It's an interesting variation/update
on the "older-woman younger-man" theme inaugurated half a century earlier by The Graduate (1967).
A big truck is parked by a road just past the Mexican border in Texas.
We hear people screaming for help. Finally,
someone opens the swing-out doors and we see that the truck is full of illegal
immigrants, short of oxygen and water. A young man, Fernando, escapes while the others are being harassed and robbed by the smugglers. He walks a long way until a merciful stranger offers him a ride, water and food. He then hitchhikes to San Francisco and walks into a house that is not locked. In the evening an older woman arrives and they have sex.
He speaks fluent English and doesn't look like the typical illegal immigrant.
We see that the woman, Jennifer, works for a philanthropic foundation run by her father and has
a racist brother, Jake, who thinks that anyone who speaks Spanish is Mexican,
not a US citizen. However, their father supports Jennifer's social programs.
Jennifer continues her affair with Fernando until one day he decides to leave her.
She begs him to come back, he tells her that he's going back to Mexico.
She takes the plane to Mexico. It turns out her family's foundation is funding a dance academy in Mexico City, and Fernando is one of its ballet dancers.
She is addicted to their erotic games.
Trying to locate Fernando, she visits Fernando's parents, who don't approve of
the relationship.
Nobody knows where Fernando is. She hires a detective to track him down.
And one day he shows up outside the concert hall where Jennifer and her father
are about to attend a dance performance: he is dancing in the street for money.
He avoids her.
Jennifer's friend and choreographer Matthew is impressed by the talent of the street dancer. Through Matthew, she finds out that he works as a maid in a motel,
but he still rejects her.
Matthew takes Fernando into his dance troupe even though Fernando admits that he is illegally in the USA.
Jennifer, obsessed, keeps watching videos of them together, and keeps calling him.
Fernando, meanwhile, finds a girlfriend of his age.
Eventually, Fernando returns to her at the same time that Matthew is choosing
him as the lead dancer of the company.
Fernando also becomes a ballet teacher.
Jennifer's brother Jake sees Fernando at Jennifer's place and tells her father who subtly lectures her about class differences.
The following day Fernando gets arrested by immigration officials and deported: someone turned him in.
Jennifer promptly joins him in Mexico.
Fernando wants to return to San Francisco, no matter that the risks are, and
finds another smuggler.
She is upset by the news and she confesses to Fernando that she is the one who
called the police and had him deported: she has realized that they cannot live
a normal life together in San Francisco, only in Mexico, and so would like him
to remain in Mexico.
Fernando locks her in a room and keeps her prisoner.
He sends away the maid and cancels her ride to the airport.
Jake comes to rescue her and hires two goons to break Fernando's legs, thus terminating his dancing career. She coldly accepts all of this.
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