Beginning in December 2005 with my history of apes in film essay “Gorilla of Your Dreams” (the substantially update and revised version appears in The Apes of Wrath), I regularly contributed to Moving Pictures Magazine. First in the print incarnation and then for primarily the website. I contributed reviews and essays for the last three years of the publications existence. Following the June 2011 demise of both the print and website editions, all of the digital work for MPM disappeared into the ether. In the coming months (years?), I plan on reposting many of my reviews and articles.
With the impending Fantastic Fest 2013, complete with Jim Mickle’s remake of Jorge Michel Grau’s We Are What We Are (Somos Lo Que Hay), I’m offering up my take on the original film.
We Are What We Are (Somos Lo Que Hay)
Reviewed by Rick Klaw
(February 2011)
Directed and written by Jorge Michel Grau
Starring: Francisco Barreiro, Alan Chávez, Paulina Gaitán, Carmen Beato, Jorge Zárate, and Esteban Soberánes
Reminiscent of the 1977 Wes Craven classic “The Hills Have Eyes,” director/writer Jorge Michel Grau offers his unique portrait of an unusual Mexican family with his debut feature, the disturbing and compelling “We Are What We Are (Somos Lo Que Hay)”
Following the sudden death of their patriarch/caretaker, the temperamental Patricia Carmen Beato) and her three teenage children must fend for themselves. Father prepared the rituals and acquired the meat for this family of cannibals. Aided by his impetuous younger brother Julián (Alan Chávez) and his pragmatic sister Sabina (Paulina Gaitán), this momentous task now falls to the eldest son, Alfredo (Francisco Barreiro), who seems ill suited for the responsibility. Chaos and emotional turmoil follow as the family hunts for the flesh they need to survive.
Grau, winner of several awards for shorter works, populates this claustrophobic, dark reality with unsavory and unsympathetic characters. A bumbling cop (Jorge Zárate), creepy undertaker (Daniel Giménez Cacho), and an effeminate young man (Esteban Soberánes) all initially appear as possible comic relief in the oppressively nihilistic film, but all quickly spiral into the inner voids of selfishness and cruelty. Even the likable Sabina descends to the depths of the familial hell. After all, it is difficult to maintain sympathy for someone after watching them gleefully nibbling on the bloody thigh of a bound victim.
Astonishingly, despite the unpleasant premise, Grau manages to keep the bloodletting below pre-spectacle levels, rather relying primarily on shadows and innuendo with just the proper amount of shock-inducing gore, more in line with a Hitchcockian thriller than its more immediate antecedents such as the “Saw” films, “The Descent,” and “The Hostel.” The oft-times surprising story, replete with none-too-subtle parallels with contemporary urban Mexican life, disappointingly culminates into an all predictable conclusion.
Empowered by some excellent acting especially from Gaitán (“Sin Nombre”) and Barreiro (“Perpetuum Mobile”), the mesmerizing “We Are What We Are” features the arrival of a promising new talent, destined to be a prominent figure within the next generation of horror movie makers.