One of the more formally impressive features I saw at Sundance earlier this year was the latest from Identifying Features team Astrid Rondero and Fernanda Valadez. Sujo, which picked up a Sundance Grand Jury Prize and was named Mexico’s Oscar entry, will now arrive in U.S. theaters starting next week, on December 6, and the first trailer has landed.
Here’s the synopsis: “After a cartel gunman from a small Mexican town is murdered, Sujo, his beloved four-year-old son, is left an orphan and in danger. Sujo narrowly escapes death with the help of his aunt who raises him in the isolated countryside amidst hardship, poverty, and the constant peril associated with his identity. When he enters his teens a rebelliousness awakens in him, and like a rite of passage, he joins the local cartel. As a young man, Sujo attempts to make his life anew, away from the violence of his hometown. However, when his father’s legacy catches up with him, he will come face-to-face with what seems to be his destiny.”
John Fink said in his review, “A film about growing up in your father’s shadow that mostly (and unexpectedly) examines the role of women as community pillars and violence interrupters, Sujo is the compelling new Sundance award-winning feature from Identifying Features team Astrid Rondero and Fernanda Valadez. The father in question Josue (Juan Jesús Varela Hernández) is a sicario, a brutal gang enforcer killed early in the film by his cartel. The first chapter unfolds as young Sujo (Kevin Uriel Aguilar Luna) watches his father conduct business at a distance, purposefully disorienting passages wherein we overhear conversations. Compounding the confusion, when his father doesn’t return home, we witness a chilling scene in which he’s hidden by his aunt Nemesia (Yadira Perez Esteban) when a member of the cartel comes to exact revenge after Sujo’s father killed his son.”
See the trailer below.
