Hugo Lazcano/Reform Agency
Saturday, January 28, 2023 | 06:49
Mexico City.- It’s the 70s and in a town on the Gulf (called Paracuán) dead girls have begun to appear. The mourners demand justice, but the Police, instead of providing progress and results, evidence chaos, corruption and dark alliances with crime.
A respected agent, Vicente Rangel (Leonardo Ortizgris), will take the case by chance and with the help of Ramón “Macetón” Cabrera (Krystian Ferrer) and the photojournalist “La Chilanga” (Sofía Espinosa) will move a deadly hornet’s nest in all that oil region with their research.
Los Minutos Negros, the second feature film by Mario Muñoz (director of the notable police thriller Bajo la Sal -2008-), is an adaptation of the successful novel of the same name by Martín Solares which, it must be said from the beginning, stands out to a great extent from the literary achievement of the original creator to, in another format, win his as an intense “tropical film noir”, as Muñoz calls it.
Without pretending to be a denunciation plot, the tape written between Muñoz and Solares, which can already be seen on ViX+, is a solid piece of film noir, with rules and decorum, but also a brutal look at the reality of the Country that slaps in the face. screen: lack of security, justice and values everywhere.
“The issue of validity hurts me and creates a very uncomfortable feeling for me,” shares Muñoz. “I read this novel 14 years ago and Martín wrote it in the 90s, it took him 10 years to write it… and I ask myself: ‘How is it possible that these themes become more present, more ardent and daily?’ It’s sad but true”.
As at present, journalism plays an important role in the search for truth through a young woman who is not satisfied with portraying a black -forgive the redundancy- reality.
“‘La Chilanga’ is a character that I’ve liked a lot since I read the novel, and working with Mario we really look for that character’s heart, that vocation and honesty of justice. She’s a character who really believes that things can change, that believes that their work is necessary and can generate change,” says the Ariel Award-winning actress for her characterization of Gloria Trevi in the film Gloria (2014).
Right on the screen, this haughty young woman is luminous in a macho environment and makes her way in her journalistic work with the help of a mother and with the determination to make an alliance with detective Rangel in search of the person responsible for the infanticides.
Meanwhile, “Macetón”, Rangel’s young assistant, is with a very contained performance, a key witness throughout all the actions, which for his interpreter was first a challenge, for which, in the end, he ended up receiving the Ariel of Masculine Coacting.
“My character doesn’t seem to be doing much, but a lot of things are happening within himself and I think that was difficult to achieve. He ends up representing a lot of the youth of that time, which was a very critical context, we came from the 1968 movement that ends in the massacre of October 2.
“And then the subsequent years, which are the presidential succession, etc., etc…. were very dark years and I think that the intention of this character, without getting sentimental, is to try to improve the conditions of that environment a little with actions ethics,” says Ferrer.
After its premiere was delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Los Minutos Negros suffered a budget cut that did not diminish the quality of its creation.
Muñoz admits that he was left wanting to shoot some scenes of persecutions and shootings, for the sake of entertainment, but his absence injected more doses of dramatic tension that return to history, with performances by José Sefami, Enrique Arreola, Mauricio Isaac, Tiaré Scanda and Carlos Aragón, among others, a pearl in at least two six-year terms of national noir film attempts.
“In making the film now there is a very clear connection between the problems we have today and those of that moment, and it makes us wonder how we got here, why we are here, why things have not changed, why they have gotten worse. Muñoz reflects.
