The horrors and darkness that thrive in the corner of every eye are torn loose…
Edward had the good life, a beautiful wife and the perfect little girl, yet finds himself several whiskeys down and driving through the night of Dormont to end his secret affair - in a bid to fix his mistakes.Īs Edward pulls into the Golden Oak Motel, he is unaware just how much this night will change his life… Some mistakes should never happen, not when your life is complete – and yet they do. Whispers of disappearances carry through the town as a burgeoning, uneasy and irrational fear begins to spread and darkness comes to be an unwelcome reflection to Those Who Remain. Location adjusted.As the lights go out, the embers of darkness are stoked in the sleepy town of Dormont. Deborah Bonello in Guadalajara, Mexico. Peace, love and understanding is the only message that the directors say they are trying to spread, and they say it so eloquently, one can’t help hoping that someone is watching and listening. But it also has the potential to inform audiences about what drives the millions of migrants north in the first place. If shown in the U.S., “Those Who Remain” will be a sweet, if painful, reminder to the millions of migrants living in El Norte of what they left behind. It’s a big responsibility, and that’s a big challenge, because it moves you,” says Hagerman.Īt the time of this writing, Hagerman and Rulfo were looking for a distribution deal in the United States. “When you’re doing a documentary with real characters, it affects you, what happens to them. The intimacy that the directors capture in the film, in terms of people’s feelings as well as the relationships they have with their loved ones, is what gives ‘Those Who Remain’ its poetic tone - a tone enhanced by a music score by Cafe Tacuba, among others.īut that intimacy also presented the directors with their biggest challenge. It’s the things that they are missing and would like to be a part of.” ‘By staying with the families through their everyday lives it’s like we’re witnessing the little things for the ghosts that are over there. These are the little things that you miss when you’re away from your own country. Hagerman adds: “It’s those little things - it can be a taste, or a smell, or the way your grandmother made lemonade. So that’s the basis of the kind of feelings that we’re trying to express to the audience,” Rulfo said. “There are a lot of very small things that you have in your mind that you remember all the time when you’re out of your own country. The film won’t just speak to Mexican migrants living in the United States, but to any family, from anywhere in the world, split by migration. “Those Who Remain” is about absence, broken families and unworked fields, about survival, identity, love and relationships. but the feeling is very strange - it’s like the absence of your deepest, deepest whole,” Rulfo said. “Maybe the people who leave the country are always thinking about the relatives they left behind. The directors spent 11 months with more than a dozen Mexican families, living in their homes, observing their lives and getting a sense of their realities. “We didn’t want this film to say ‘don’t go’ or ‘go’, because who are we to judge what the people do?” Hagerman said. The homes and families that those migrants come from are usually just a jumping-off point for filmmakers, but Rulfo and Hagerman chose to stay at the point of departure to see how those who remain deal with their reduced numbers. The focus on the issue of migration that we see in the movies tends to focus on the treacherous journey that so many Mexicans and Central Americans make across the border to the United States, or what life is like once they get there. about how far away they are,” says Juanita, speaking to the cameras directed by the Mexican duo Juan Carlos Rulfo and Carlos Hagerman in “Los Que Se Quedan,” or “Those Who Remain.” We spend our time thinking about our children. Life goes on without them, but for Juanita and Pascual - who eke out a modest living on their small farm -– it has never been quite the same since the children left. Three out of eight of her brood are living in the United States, where they have been for the last eight years. Juanita often sits outside the small and humble home that she shares with her husband Pascual in the Mexican state of Puebla. ‘I’m always telling Marcos, when he left my hair was black and now it’s as gray as the Orizaba volcano.” This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links.