Drm.am attended the red carpet for the ‘Desierto’ premiere and talked to director Jonás Cuarón, son of Alfonso Cuarón who was also a producer for this movie. Father and son have already worked together on the successful movie ‘Gravity’ that came out back in 2013.
‘Desierto’ is a very exiting action thriller about a group of illegal immigrants, including Moises (García Bernal), who want to cross the border from Mexico into the United States. During their journey, their truck breaks down which gives the immigrants no choice but to continue the rest of the journey by foot. But when they enter the US grounds, out of nowhere, the immigrants become the target of a extremely racist man, bearing a gun. The man (Dean Morgan, most known for his role in the tv hit-serie ‘Grey’s Anatomy’) is determined to kill them one by one. It would definitely be an understatement to call this movie ‘strained’. This movie is so nail-biting and heavy-handed that some people might experience the movie as ‘too much’. The political principles are also very clear in this movie, related to the current immigrant issue at the moment all over the world.
García Bernal gives an impressively physical performance, therefore combining all of his talents. Despite his rough and raw role and character, he still contains to be a vulnerable father who wants his son to arrive healthy and alive in the US. Dean Morgan on the other hand plays the character of a horrifying criminal who has his mindset in the wrong place which includes driven by racism and patriotism in an extreme way.
The idea of Jonás Cuarón was to create a very visual experience and to put the audience through a journey. Through that he thought that he would be able to talk about a subject matter which in this case was the theme of migration. Of course, this is a very disturbing, violent and cruel subject matter. That makes all the deaths that happen because of migration and wrong policies also something very cruel and violent. He has been interested in the subject matter for a long time now and therefore started reading a lot about this theme. As a result, he tried to figure out the best way to make a movie out of the migration subject matter.
‘All the deaths that happen because of migration makes it something very cruel and violent’ – Jonás Cuarón
Check out our interview with Jonás Cuarón here:
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