With "El Despojo", Mexican cinematographer Antonio Reynoso directs one of the few short films of his career bringing drama, thrills,
violence and mystery with a common story yet his careful visual style, framing of shots and the editing of everything makes it feel as something
never seen before, most likely never expressed in such a manner before.
It revolves a poor peasant tired of the oppression from his boss, a wealthy local farmer, who kills the man (an amazing moment, filled
with tension) and moves away with wife and their sick son to escape a potential retaliation. With the little money the woman saved, they ride
through desert areas where hopelessness is something to be surmounted, but the hours run against them and the boy only gets sicker by the
minute, and visions of death are all that's left.
It's mostly a silent work, except for a narrator at the beginning (posssibly the peasant's voice, but it's a different actor), a sort
of a dramatic western mixed a social causes scenario, a tale about poverty, injustice and how violence end up becoming the only possible
solution to a major problem, as dialogue between those with power and those without it is simply not possible. Reynoso knows how to develop
the drama of it all, with a tense and suffocating view of a desolate world, with no riches to be found (but they can be dreamt). 7/10.
