Synopsis
Magdalena, a mother in search of her missing son, meets Miguel, recently deported from the US and looking for his mother. Together, they make their way through the desolate and unforgiving militia-ridden landscapes south of the border.
Identifying Features
2020 ‘Sin Señas Particulares’ Directed by Fernanda Valadez
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Alternative Titles
Skiriamieji zenklai, Без отличительных черт
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Muchas películas sobre situaciones como la migración y la violencia suelen saturar sus narrativas con tantos incidentes en la vida de un solo personaje que se vuelven inverosímiles. En el interés de abarcar y conmover, muchos cineastas pierden el piso y nos dan melodramas que terminan menospreciando temas y personajes en favor del efecto sentimental. Sin señas particulares, de Fernanda Valadez, coincide en abarcar mucho pero lo hace con una destreza magnífica: alrededor de la protagonista, una mujer que busca a su hijo que desapareció en su camino a los Estados Unidos, se aparecen personajes a cuyas narrativas Valadez les da el mismo peso que a la central. Su visión del dolor es horizontal y vasta pero sobre todo inmensamente…
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Fernanda Valadez’s debut is a tense, quiet, powerful film. It’s filled with both unanswered questions and shocking reveals.
Identifying Features build its mystery slowly at first, towards a heart-pounding end. Valadez makes great use of shallow focus, although sometimes she gets a little too abstract.
This isn’t just a story of those crossing the US/Mexico border, but of the loved ones they leave behind. The constant not-knowing and grief, the fear and violence, the love and hope.
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Identifying Features has a mature grasp of the themes it’s presenting. It takes its time in building the tone, with every story beat being used to great effect. There’s a natural progression to how everything plays out. And this is by far one of the best shot films of 2020. There a numerous instances of both reflection and fire with a precision that’s rarely seen. The wide shots feel wide and the close-ups feel intimate. It’s a visceral experience brought forth through great performances, writing, and cinematography.
Touching on both immigration and family takes a skilled filmmaker to make it work and Fernanda Valadez does just that. She brings out the emotional response to losing a loved one without making it overly sappy or indulgent. While the scale may be small on the surface, Identifying Features shows the greater weight and consequence of Magdalena’s experience.
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IDENTIFYING FEATURES is a quietly devastating & atmospheric directorial debut from Fernanda Valadez that showcases the horrors of crossing the Mexican boarder. Mercedes Hernández delivers an astonishing performance that chipped away at my soul. What a dark & stunning ending! Wow!
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(no spoilers here)
If an author is going to write a magical realism novel, they better bring it. Novelists like Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Toni Morrison can make eating dirt seem sensuous, and killing a child seem protective. In the hands of less skilled authors, magical realism can feel clumsy, like it’s shoehorned into a story just to add a splash of color to an otherwise drab canvas.
Identifying Features, Fernanda Valadez’s feature film debut, earns its magical realism. Magdalena, played by the incredible Mercedes Hernandez, embarks on a perilous journey to Mexico to find her son. She already knows that the friend her son traveled from Texas with is dead, but she desperately craves certainty regarding her son’s fate. The…
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Wow, what an incredible film. Apart from hitting close to home, the hypnotic direction aids in creating a dreamlike atmosphere that beautifully contrasts the harsh realities of immigration depicted on screen. It may have some slight pacing issues, but the sheer amount of impeccable craftsmanship on display here more than makes up for its flaws.
Go check this one out when it releases in virtual cinemas on 1/22!
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Two boys, Rigo and Jesús, set off for the Mexican border and the promise of a better life. Two months pass and having had no word, the mothers of the boys approach the local police, fearing the worst. They're shown little sympathy and unceremoniously presented with a book of photos of dead bodies; forensic evidence from a myriad of unsolved cases. One is identified as Rigo but Jesús's mother receives no such cold comfort. Her son's body has apparently not been retrieved, but unwilling to accept that it must be one of the bodies found in a mass grave, burnt beyond recognition, she sets off on his trail, clinging to the desperate hope that he's still alive, out there somewhere.…
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The horrifying reality of the Mexican border has been repeatedly documented on film. The gruesome war on drugs was portrayed in Denis Villeneuve’s Sicario, while the intense danger of cartel gangs was seen in the Mexican drama Sin Nombre. Several movies that follow this topic most commonly have either thriller elements or a gritty tone, but first time director Fernanda Valadez introduces a fresh new voice, possibly the most raw and genuine one yet.
Valadez, who also pens the screenplay, builds a drama that relies less on plot and more on its atmospheric and gloomy world, while packing the punch a story like this one needs. Identifying Features has a unique creative craft to it, resulting in a sincere and exceptional look at the ongoing border situation, where people are assaulted, kidnapped or sometimes murdered. Valadez uses strong technical and visual support to fuel its dramatic and emotional effect.
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Nací y e vivido toda mi vida en el estado de Tamaulipas, lugar dónde se desarrolla está impactante obra, que me parece más cerca de ser un documental, que un filme. Es un cine desde luego necesario, que nos recuerda la cruda realidad social mexicana y de muchas personas venidas de centro américa que viven bajo el anhelo del "sueño americano", así cómo bajo el yugo del narcotráfico. Triste es pensar que dichos problemas, posiblemente nunca dejen de aquejar a nuestra sociedad.Retratos de distintas clases sociales, distintas perspectivas, la religión y la fé que acompaña a gran parte de los mexicanos, de pueblos en mi estado que han desaparecido por completo, y de un ciclo interminable en dónde…
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Winner of the World Audience Award and Special Jury Award for Best Screenplay at last year's Sundance Film Festival, Identifying Features is a creatively constructed drama that relies less on plot and more on its atmospheric and bleak world.
From first-time director Fernanda Valadez, who also wrote the screenplay, the harrowing narrative follows Magdalena (Mercedes Hernández) as she attempts to locate the whereabouts of her teenage son, Jesús (Juan Jesús Varela). He's travelled from Guanajuato, Mexico, in an attempt to cross the border into Arizona, and the narrative interweaves the storyline of Chuya (Laura Elena Ibarra), whose son, Pedro (Xicoténcatl Ulloa), accompanied him.
The first half of the film devotes itself to being a moderately paced portrayal of the frustrating…
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Identifying Features is an earth-shattering portrait of Mexico's troubles. It is a tense and dangerous, with shocking reveals and despairing moments. It is a film of desperation, of people wanting a better life. Yet in doing so Identifying Features shows us a world filled with dead bodies. There is something so unnerving to the fact that a whole bureaucracy exists around the dead and missing. It has become a way of life. Identifying Features is filled with intersecting stories, but they all swirl around a mother searching for her missing son. Then the final act brings something new and more grim than before. We see a violent, burning world, one of war and crime. Young men are brought to violence and saved by the devil. This is a film of losing a child, but not in the way you expect.
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Review by Kate Erbland
A week after Jesús (Juan Jesús Varela) announces his immigration dreams to his mother Magdalena (Mercedes Hernández) — a simple plan, consisting of alighting to Arizona with his best friend Rigo (Armando García), getting a job, and not much else — the young Mexican teenager is gone. Months later, the boys have yet to announce their arrival in the United States, nor have they returned to the landlocked state of Guanajuato. They, like so many before and likely after them, have simply gone missing, and in a country where such a tragedy is all too common, it falls on the people they’ve left behind to figure out what has happened to their beloved boys.
Fernanda Valadez’s…
