In 1950, the great surrealist Luis Buñuel, the Spanish-born filmmaker whose extensive career included some magical years in Mexico, made a film about street kids in Mexico City, “Los Olvidados” (“The Forgotten”). It took a gritty neorealist approach, punctuated by typically Buñuelian surrealism.
In Issa López’s “Tigers Are Not Afraid,” we have a “Los Olvidados” for our times, a film about homeless children of Mexico City, victims of the drug trade, and how, in their dreams at least, they fight back. It, too, has a hardscrabble realism, but also flights of fantasy and horror. Tigers come to life, ghosts whisper creepy clues, and a trail of blood pursues its next victim.
Call it Buñuel meets Blumhouse, a film that is flawed but so full of ideas that it doesn’t matter. The fascinating film, in Spanish with subtitles, opens exclusively at the Alamo Drafthouse’s New Mission theater in San Francisco.
The film begins by noting that in more than a decade of drug wars in Mexico, 160,000 people have been killed, with 53,000 missing. There are no statistics for children. Some areas of cities have become ghost towns.
Before the credits roll, Estrella (Paola Lara) has to hit the deck as her classroom is shot up, then goes home to find an empty house and a trail of blood that snakes up walls and down TVs and stains clothing. Her mother is gone.
Homeless, Estrella tries to hook up with a street gang of similarly homeless boys, led by El Shine (Juan Ramón López). She has to prove her worth by killing a member of the drug cartel, Caco, who is terrorizing their community. Shine gives her a gun, and she enters Caco’s house to find him dead — she fires the gun to make it seem as if she killed him.
Accepted into the gang, Estrella realizes she has endangered the group as Caco’s boss, El Chino (Tenoch Huerta), wants them dead. She also is searching for her mother — has she been killed, or is she in danger?
Estrella’s fantasies scare her and provide comfort. They give her the illusion of insight and power in otherwise helpless situations. Dead hands try to grab her through a sewer grate, and she and the gang run to safety; through her visions, Estrella senses the real danger approaching before her companions do.
“Tigers Are Not Afraid,” which zips along in its perfectly wonderful 83-minute running time, is Lopez’s fourth feature film. I haven’t seen her other work, but based on this film, it’s no wonder Guillermo del Toro has hired her to direct a werewolf Western. I can’t wait.
M“Tigers Are Not Afraid”: Horror. Starring Paola Lara, Juan Ramón López and Hanssel Casillas. Directed by Issa López. Theaters and showtimes (Not rated. 83 minutes.)