Personne n'est obligé de me croire

After the success of the acclaimed movie "Ya no estoy aquí", Fernando Frías tries with a smarter but unfortunatelly not so strong project, "No voy a pedirle a nadie que me crea".

The plot turns around one tragedie after another, mixed with black humour and smart analogies.

At times the pace might be slow, but Fernando knows how to build a problematic atmosphere and uses all his resources to develop the characters and the chaotic situations they are going through.

The weaker point of this movie resides on the screenplay too, Fernando tries to cover a lot of subplots that it's hard to focus on one, but the performances of everyone involved in this movie, specially the staring couple - Dario Yazbek Bernal and Natalia Solián - are so good, that its flaws might be forgiven.

The film delves into several complex themes and ideas:

The relationship between art and reality: The central idea revolves around Juan Pablo's attempt to turn his terrifying real-life situation into a novel. The film constantly blurs the line between his lived experience and his artistic interpretation, questioning where one ends and the other begins. The title itself, taken from a pornographic film he watches at the beginning, suggests a cynical view of truth and storytelling.

Corruption and power: The film presents a world where corruption is pervasive, from the drug cartels in Mexico to the seemingly refined political and academic elite in Spain. It challenges the romanticized view of "Old World" Europe, showing it to be just as rotten as the "New World" in many ways. The criminal network is portrayed as a powerful, international entity that operates with impunity, manipulating individuals and systems for its own gain.

The immigrant and expat experience: The film explores the experience of being a Mexican in Spain. Valentina's alienation and struggle to navigate a new city with a distant boyfriend highlight the difficulties of immigration. The film also uses the narrative to critique the idea of a shared culture or language, showing how a common tongue can still mask deep-seated prejudices and differences.

The nature of belief: The title, "I Don't Expect Anyone to Believe Me," is a key to the film's meaning. It's a meta-commentary on the unreliability of the narrator, the absurdity of the situations presented, and the audience's own role in accepting or rejecting the story. It asks viewers to consider what they choose to believe and why, both within the film's world and in their own lives.

I definitely wasn't sure where this was going at the beginning, especially giving some gratuitous porn at the films opening. But soon enough we get an idea that we are aboard a Mexican film noir train transposed to Barcelona, all the better to reflect on the continuing legacy of post colonialism. The film has a lot to say but does it by telling the story of the hapless hero sucked into a ruthless world of organised crime, an insidious aspect of modern Mexico and from which there is no escape. I liked the way the film stays small and personal to tell a bigger story. The acting is great and the direction is steadied and assured.

Juan is a normal everyday guy, but after a run in at a bookshop his trip to Barcelona is cute short and he finds himself in with the Mexican mob. There wasn't really much that I liked about this film. They first 25 minutes were dreary and not a single things happened. It picks up a little at the thirty minutes mark as we get into some crime stuff as promised but it's very little. The rest of the film to me didn't make sense. The only thing I did enjoy was valentinas character and her wacky dancing. Her character was the only one that had substance but sadly the movie could not be saved it was just not all that great.

A surprising story, a tone that constantly oscillates between comedy and tragedy, farce and hyperrealism, narrated with great skill where each subplot and secondary character has ample reason for being,with several main plots finely interwoven, on the one hand it is the story of the search for the dreams of an apprentice writer and his academic preparation, on the other the chronicle of a strange case of manipulation and abuse of the Mexican mafia in combination with political and Spanish police. An extraordinary script, with great dialogues where Spanish-speaking characters from all latitudes alternate, of course Mexicans, Catalans, Argentines, Chileans, even Italians (based in Barcelona and speaking in Spanish). The direction and editing are simply fantastic, the narrative speed is always dizzying, the plot always advances at a dizzying pace and takes sudden and unexpected turns ending with a very tragic ending.

. Some fantastic performances such as Alexis Ayala, Juan Minuyin or Carmen Beato.