La Jaula de Oro (The Golden Cage) (Diego Quemada-Diez, 2013): Guatemala | Mexico | Spain

Reviewed by Mirass Jalil. Viewed at Santa Barbara International Film Festival.

The Cannes Film Festival winner, The Golden Cage (La Jaula de Oro), was a mind-blowing piece of art with a focus on realism.  Me, as everybody else in the theatre, stood up and cheered after the screening at Santa Barbara International Film Festival.

The director, Diego Guemeda-Diez, is utterly successful in giving us a film that shows realism with his handheld-camera sequences. The acting was amazing and helps us to understand the characters even though they are in a situation that is impossible to relate to.

We see the 16 year old Juan (Brandon Lopéz) packing his belonging and heading to the land of the dreams, United States Of America, with his two friends, Sara (Karen Martínez) and Samuel (Carlos Chajon). Their route is from Guatemala to USA with a passing through Mexico. A long their way they come across an indian named Chauk (Rodolfo Domínguez) who doesn’t speak a word of spanish. Juan is immediately hostile to this newcomer who grows found of Sara, the girl that Juan has set his eyes on. They are traveling on cargo trains, walk on rail roads and as they go a long they face the harsh reality of corruption, human trafficking and drug smuggling.

If you are sick of classic Hollywood-films that tries to learn us some sort of lesson of life by letting the main character go through hell and at the end let him grow to be a better person and all ends well, then this is the film for you. As the characters get closer to their goal the situation gets even worse and just before the resolution the main character gets slapped on the face by reality. This is exactly what Guemeda-Diez explores, the realism of a major social problem we face today. There are several scenes where a handheld-camera is being used. For example when the teenagers run from the cops the director uses a handheld-camera as e follows the action and not anticipate it. The long takes with no music in the background but only sounds from the environment the characters are in, gives us once again realism.

If you are a big fan of the Sundance Film Festival winner  “Sin Nombre” then go watch “La Jaula de Oro”, which also draws up an image of the horrors in boarder-crossing from Mexico to USA. It made me think on a whole new level and see things from a new perspective.