Writers: Amat Escalante, Martín Escalante and Paulina Mendoza
Director: Amat Escalante
Its poetic title sounds like a classic 50s noir but this Mexican thriller, screening at the BFI London Film Festival 2023, investigates the unexplained disappearance of citizens close to the American border. But while Lost in the Night has a serious political subtext, much of its 120-minute story is based around the loaded interactions between an artistic family and the working-class youth they hire to do odd jobs. Director Amat Escalante draws tension from the odd behaviours and the potential for misdemeanor that lingers beneath the surface of this controlled movie.
Three years previously, Emiliano’s mother disappeared, and a pre-title sequence shows her abduction, abused and led off by the police with nothing but her car and her dead driver to indicate what happened. When Emiliano finally gets a tip off from a dying cop, he and his girlfriend talk their way into an artists’ house where they can investigate further.
Lost in the Night co-written by Amat Escalante, Martín Escalante and Paulina Mendoza is shaped into three distinct chapters; the first sets the scene, establishing the context in which Emiliano lives, the people he knows and the broader issue of disappearances that affects multiple families in which police collusion is important. The second part of the film places Emiliano into the domestic life of the artist, observing them, being drawn into their business and becoming the object of daughter Moníca’s affection. The final stage returns to the main plot with a higher stakes chase as various storylines come together.
The middle part of the film is perhaps the most gripping and unexpected, exploring Emiliano’s possible compromises as he gets to know the family, fails to squash an attraction with Moníca and is almost flattered by their interest in his life. Escalante also manages the unfolding scale well as the stories come to a head in a tense action sequence, but the film does start to lose sight of its focus on Emiliano’s mother, leaving several avenues unresolved.
There is some interesting character work that could also be expanded. We never learn what kind of artist Rigoberto is and likewise his singer wife (Bárbara Mori) is largely a hysterical cliché while daughter Moníca (Ester Expósito) has an interesting sideline in vlogging supposed suicide attempts, but there’s more to say about the cultural influence of these people and what may be driving their behaviour or how this might be theoretically linked to the abductions taking place on or near their land.
Juan Daniel García Treviño is a strong lead whose tenacity and guile is underscored by an enduring frustration about his family history. His practicality is essential to the trajectory his character goes on, but there its is also a very psychological performance that develops as the story takes him to unexpected places.
Escalante’s film is overlong and becomes a little lost in its own complicated characters without resolving its essential mystery driver.
Lost in the Night is screening at the BFI London Film Festival 2023.
