JOSÉ

Li Cheng 2018 Guatemala United States 85min Spanish s-t-en

Synopsis:
As 19-year-old José (Enrique Salanic) flags down restaurant customers in the turbulent Guatemala City streets, his mother (Ana Cecilia Mota) tries to sell meat sandwiches illegally in a marketplace across town. Their earnings will barely cover their electricity bill and, with his small pittance, José rents a room by the hour with his lover Luis (Manolo Herrera). Self-described “world nomad” Li Cheng’s film is about a mother and son, a city simultaneously in decline and on the rise, a relationship in the shadows. A film immersed in Guatemalan culture – from the barbershop to the religious festival, to the crumbling Bauhaus exterior where José and Luis meet before they retreat to their hideaway, searching one another’s scars. When José and Luis escape on a motorbike trip the film trades its chiaroscuro moodiness for the clear light of the open road, but this openness is tenuous. Luis wants a “better life…anywhere but Guatemala” and José is torn, not wanting to abandon his mother. Timely and naturalistic, José captures the shakiness of the current moment and the torture of disappearing men, asking whether we can ever trust the ground beneath our feet.