A few weeks before I started college, my brother ran away from home; a mixture of teenage rebellion and a new girlfriend caused him to make that hurtful decision. He was gone for a couple of months and I don’t think my mom slept for that entire time. So I have first-hand knowledge of how powerful a mother’s love can be. The cops weren’t much help with the situation so my mother and I had to become FBI detectives; we knocked on many doors, drove through alleys late at night and relentlessly called any contact we could get our hands on. Now, to be clear, my family’s experience does not compare to the film I’m about to tell you about but I wanted to give you a bit of a backstory so you understand how powerful this film felt to me.
La Civil directed by Teodora Ana Mihai, tells the story of Cielo (Arcelia Ramírez), who’s daughter Laura (Denisse Azpilcueta) is kidnapped by the cartel. She finds out about her daughters’ kidnapping when she’s confronted by two teenage boys demanding 150,000 pesos for the return of her daughter. Cielo is forced to go ask her estranged husband and Laura’s absent father, Gustavo (Álvaro Guerrero), for the sum. Though they can’t come up with the full amount, they give what they have, in hopes that it’ll be enough to bring their daughter home. Unfortunately the amount is not enough and when her daughter doesn’t get returned, Cielo sets out on a mission to find her on her own.
Inspired by the story of Miriam Rodriguez, who hunted down 10 of her daughter’s killers from a notorious Mexican cartel and brought them to justice then was later killed in front of her house on Mexican Mother’s Day, director Teodora Ana Mihai tells a gripping story. Prior to this film Teodora has worked on documentaries and when she was figuring out a way to tell this story, a documentary just felt too dangerous to try to film. However, this film almost feels like a documentary; the camera stays close to Cielo at all times that it almost feels like we’re right behind her as she searches for her daughter.
La Civil feels very real as it does an outstanding job at capturing the violence that Mexico constantly lives in. It doesn’t shy away from being brutally honest, it forces you to look at the gore that exists in the quiet corners of the small villages in Mexico. It forces you to empathize and try to understand why there’s so little that the communities can do about the things happening around them. It reminds you of the humans behind the chaos, the humans that so often get lost in the politics of it.
Even with the gore and the fighting, I want to be clear, this is not a revenge story; it’s a story about hope and about a mother’s love. Arcadia’s Cielo is strong, stoic, frustrated and full of rage. Though she rarely cries in the film, her pain is palpable throughout the entirety of it. She was the combination of all our mother’s; full of heart and the kind of frustration that burns from the inside out over the hand that The Universe has dealt you. Just thinking about her performance now, brings tears to my eyes. The power of a mother’s love and the mountains they’re willing to single-handedly move are at the forefront of this film. It’s what makes this movie so unrelenting in its message.
A reminder that this is not a unique story.
Esmeralda Gallardo was killed in Mexico after searching for her daughter who disappeared in Mexico in 2021.
Yesenia Zamudio fought for justice in her daughter’s case after María de Jesús Zamudio was thrown from a fifth floor window in Mexico City.
Marisela Escobedo Ortiz was assassinated while protesting the 2008 murder of her daughter.
Watch La Civil:
Los Angeles, CA: Laemmle Royal, opens March 17
Houston, TX: Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, April 14, 15 and 16
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