Movie review: We are what we are

Movie Review

WE ARE WHAT WE ARE (R21)

Duration: 90 minutes

Ratings: 3.5/5

The death of a nondescript middle-age man on the street starts a chain of events for his family.

They fly into a panic: What will they do, given that he is the hunter who brings home humans for their cannibalistic rituals? His sons, the gentle Alfredo (Francisco Barreiro) and the volatile Julian (Alan Chavez), take a few bungling steps at snaring prey, egged on by cold, fearsome mother Patricia (Carmen Beato) and more maternal sister Sabina (Paulina Gaitan).

The sons and daughter are well adapted for life within the confines of the apartment; but outside, they are a mess, constantly misreading social cues, either by under-reacting or over-reacting.

Only their dead father could navigate both worlds. In their small, Mexico City apartment, family members mutter ominously about a sacred ritual and how it should never be allowed to stop.

Overlaid in this kernel of introspection is a satire of life in Mexico City. The cops are so corrupt that even when there is evidence of a cult of cannibalism, they are not interested.

The homeless people and prostitutes provide easy pickings for predators.

Writer-director Jorge Michel Grau does not make them completely helpless.

They are capable of meting out justice and show that in a city where cannibalism is a fact of life - both in a literal and metaphorical sense - the sheep need to make a stand now and again.

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