Movie Review – Those Who Remain
Those Who Remain (Los que se quedan) is a documentary currently screening at the Los Angeles Film Festival. It kicked off a week of eight screenings and a conference for me. Violet joined me for this screening and we hurried to Westwood to pick up all our tickets and passes before heading down to the Landmark in time to get some good seats. It was a great way for us to start the festival.
Those Who Remain is about nine different families across Mexico who all have one thing in common – they all have loved ones or relatives living and working in the US. Some of the families had members preparing to leave, some had members returning, others had members who would never return or didn’t make it.
The movie stayed away from politics, which was nice, and focused solely on the lives of the families. There were some heart-wrenching stories. There was the father who returned home after years away because he missed his family. He was afraid he was going to have to soon leave again, because it was the only way the family could afford to send their daughters to school. There was the elderly couple who had two sons and a daughter returning home after 9 years away. There was the woman whose husband was robbed and killed while in the US, shortly after speaking on the phone with her. She never learned the details of the death.
The cinematography was amazing and the imagery beautiful. There were some powerful pictures and the filmmakers were really able to capture the heart of the people and their surrounding environment. It was a great film visually as well as the narrative it was telling. I really enjoyed this moving and seeing the perspective from the other side of the border. We too often see only politically charged stories, or stories showing only the lives of immigrants once they’re over here. We rarely get a chance to see the families they are supporting, or the lives affected by their absence. This film did an excellent job of showing just that.