A dark fairy tale about a gang of five children trying to survive the horrific violence of the cartels and the ghosts created every day by the drug war.
Reality and fantasy, the innocent and the corrupted, light and darkness all collide and intertwine in Issa López’s timely, highly affecting feature “Tigers Are Not Afraid.” Focusing on the children left behind in the wake of Mexican cartel wars, the film immerses its viewer into an often-neglected part of the world, managing to both be hyperreal and magical, jarring, and soothing. Though succinct — its running time is under 80 minutes, and it doesn’t lose its razor-sharp focus for a single one of them — “Tigers Are Not Afraid” gives off an epic feel, casting a lingering spell, that of melancholy and heartbreak and hope.
According to Shine (Juan Ramón López), an orphan living on the streets of a Mexican ghost town overridden by cartels, there’s a tiger that prowls its streets, feeding on “dogs, cat, and children with no parents.” He tells this over a fire to his gang of abandoned children, who, like the tiger, roam the dusty, sun-scorched streets, living off the junk they steal and the crumbs they find. “Eat your vegetables,” Shine scolds his friend, who picks out the peas from his cup noodles. He’s the leader of the pack, a father figure, a beacon of hope and protector from the evil, demon-worshipping Huascar.
That is, until Estrella (Paola Lara), whose mother was killed by the cartel, comes asking for acceptance. Her appearance instantly changes the dynamics of the group, making Shine defensive and reserved. “You kill him, you can stay with us,” Shine says, referring to Caco (Ianis Guerrero), a cartel member. Luckily for Estrella, she’s got three magical wishes, in form of three pieces of chalk. With the first one, she’s summoned her mother from the dead. She uses the second one to avoid killing Caco, with a serpent doing the job for her… but what summoned it? “The one who killed him is looking for you,” her dead mother whispers. “You have to bring him to me.” On the run from the Huascar, Shine, Estrella and their gang confront their demons, the film ending on a perfect, heartrending note.
Any filmmaker will tell you that directing children isn’t easy. The performances López extracts out of her cast are uniformly incredible — naturalistic, subtle, lived-in. Juan Ramón López is remarkable as Shine, the alpha male, reticent and tough and reluctant to let a girl into his world at first, but then allowing his vulnerability to, well, shine. Paola Lara is equally fantastic, guiding us through her inner world with the skill of a much more seasoned actor.
The director herself displays complete control of every sequence. She’s not afraid to be uncompromising, never sugarcoating the violence — we flinch witnessing it through the children’s eyes. The verisimilitude here is palpable: a child shakily points a gun at an adult; shots erupt outside a school building during a literature class; a corrupt cop rolls up his window and drives off when presented with direct evidence of a crime… López finds stunning beauty amidst the horror, skillfully slipping in otherworldly bits into an otherwise strikingly real narrative: glimpses of Estrella’s world, soaked with the horror of her past and the effervescent imagination that only a child can have; a dilapidated house, with goldfish swimming in its cracks; a fairy that blends into a cell-phone…
“Tigers Are Not Afraid” is a deeply emotional portrait of orphaned children succumbing to their fantasies, children who live in a lawless, violent world. It may be heavily indebted to Guillermo del Toro’s “Pan’s Labyrinth,” substituting the masterpiece’s WWII setting for Mexico’s slums (it also reminded me of Gabriele Salvatores’ “I’m Not Scared”), but Issa López’s film stands on its own as a powerful coming of age tale and a revelatory look at a little-explored issue. It’s certainly as majestic as the creature it depicts in its final frames.
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