nuts4chic - film review
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| Read Jennifer Lopez's exclusive interview about Bordertown |
This is an unfortunately true story: since the North American Free Trade Agreement became effective in 1994, the border between USA and Mexico became crowded with “maquiladoras”, corporate sweatshops in which young female workers are slaved.
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Since the same year, 400 workers have been raped and killed in the city of Juarez and other 5000 have disappeared. The killers are covered by impunity due to the corruption of the government and of the police; it costs too much to protect the workers, whereas their life is worth zero.
Intrepid reporter Lauren arrives from Chicago as a girl, Eva, has survived a rape: Lauren wants to write a hot story, Eva wants to be protected and to testify against her attackers.
The two women seek the help of Alfonso Diaz, who runs the only rebel newspaper in Juarez; Lauren starts to investigate, infiltrates a “maquiladora” disguised as a worker and finds a mass grave full of women’s bodies. Now she has the hottest story ever and is deeply involved with the matter, but her struggle has just started.
“The desert likes young girls’ flesh and no angel came”, sang Tori Amos in her dramatic ballad Juarez (in To Venus And Back, 1999). So the story was already known, Juarez was already the infamous paradise of the free-of-charge rape-kill game, but there was no such media vehicle for it until now, until Bordertown was premiered at the 57th Berlinale.
Although the film in itself has directing flaws and is not accurately written, its humanitarian message is far more important than its style. For the first time Jennifer Lopez has chosen a brave project and we can finally see that there is some brain behind all her Hollywood glow; being of Puerto Rican origins must have played a part in it, because as her character Lauren rediscovers her ethnic origins, this also applies to Lopez, whose first Spanish language album is to be released this year.
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| Read Jennifer Lopez's exclusive interview about Bordertown |
As for Antonio Banderas (who plays Alfonso Diaz) and Martin Sheen (who plays George Morgan), they represent two opposite aspects of the press: the figure of Alfonso was really inspired by the many Mexican heroic journalists and photographers who have tried to speak out and have been killed. George Morgan, Lauren’s boss, is the head of a big USA newspaper who accepts to keep silent about the news that can damage the corporate owners of the media.
The many difficulties in shooting that the crew suffered proves how important and challenging this film is: a large part of the film was shot in New Mexico and only a very small crew went to Juarez because it was too dangerous to take big stars down there – the cast and director had already been showered with death threats.
Cameras were stolen, footage was burnt and at the end the small Mexican crew had to hire a gunman, said executive producer Barbara Martinez Jitner at the press conference for the film; also because of all these efforts, it is a duty of all women with brains (of all human being with brains, actually) to support the film and its struggle for justice in Juarez. If you are an arthouse film buff, please don’t be put off by the way too spectacular and mainstream aesthetics of the film: after all, this ensures a much bigger audience for a right cause.
More Films:
Blood Diamond
Notes on a Scandal 
Perfume
The Notorious Bettie Page
The Black Dahlia
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