La Zona, a feature film directed by Rodrigo Plá premiering at the San Francisco International Film Festival on Monday, May 5 at 2 p.m., depicts Mexico’s class struggle by showing the struggles of teenagers and children in the slums and, on a wider scale, examines the relationship between the United States and Mexico.
        Three drunk teenagers from La Barrio decide to defeat the fence and attempt to steal from the neighborhood’s wealthy, guarded inhabitants. But as they break into a home, they are confronted by an old woman who threatens to shoot them. Miguel, the sober protagonist, arrives and, out of panic, knocks her unconscious. His friends shoot the old woman, and Miguel escapes, but his two friends are brutally murdered by corrupt neighborhood police.  Miguel hides in the nearby cellar of another teenager, Alejandro. The neighborhood’s paranoia increases and the police step up their brutality toward suspects. Fear constantly recreates itself in the community, with  suspects quickly labeled as threats to the community and no longer seen as human.
        Laura Santullo and Plá himself wrote an impressive, melancholy script, which features witch-hunting conversations of La Zona inhabitants that seem to be the borrowed arguments of Americans obsessed with border security.
        Seventeen-year-old Alan Chávez is perfectly cast in the film. His innocent portrayal of Miguel helps La Zona question whether the enforcement of law can overpower human decency. Spanish actor Daniel Giménez Cacho convincingly plays Alejandro’s highly moral father.
Shaky camera movements and clips from surveillance cameras make up the majority of the film’s paranoid cinematography. Every street corner and clean-cut lawn seems a guard post where Big Brother is watching, and La Zona’s ability to change emotion simply by switching cameras is impressive: Mechanical, night-vision security footage manages to make the innocent Miguel seem a rat chased through a concrete maze.
        The film’s impartial insight into what really happened when Miguel robbed the old woman’s house contrasts with what the neighborhood wants to believe, giving depth to the fears and motives of each character, especially Alejandro.
         The film’s cinematography illuminates the class differences in Mexico: Scenes of the wealthy La Zona are so full of bright and shiny pastels that they could pass for scenes from a happy musical, whereas La Barrio is covered in brown-toned shadows and grit.  The color contrast between both areas isn’t overplayed in the film, however, as many fast-paced scenes take place at night. Although the visuals are appealing, the deeper meaning of the class struggle makes the film depressing and pessimistic.
         The suspenseful and exciting drama La Zona fully deserves the best debut feature award it garnered at the Venice Film Festival.