Mojados - Through the Night
"Mojados." The English translation is "wetbacks," referring to workers from Mexico who illegally cross the border into the United States in order to earn money to send to their families back home. Their stories are, for the most part, little known and little regarded, but withMojados - Through the Night, director-writer Tommy Davis sheds some unusually personal light on this shadowy world. Davis managed to persuade four young men--Guapo (Handsome), his brother Viejo (Old Man; he’s all of 26), Oso (Bear), and Tigre (Tiger)--to let him accompany them as they leave their homes, head north toward the Rio Grande, and then cross over into Texas. The trip is over a week long, with more than its share of hardships (enduring cold nights and sweltering days, drinking contaminated water and eating moldy bread, climbing barbed wire fences and sleeping on muddy ground), uncertainty, and fear of capture by the U.S. Border Patrol. And yet it’s relatively uneventful, or so it seems. There’s little drama here; the four men just doggedly move on, with no map, dwindling supplies, and a vague plan of finding another immigrant to stay with before scattering to Austin and elsewhere. They don’t all make it; but among those don’t, their almost matter-of-fact willingness to go through it all again is remarkable. Davis, who narrates in a kind of conspiratorial whisper, is sympathetic to themojados(he also interviews a Texas rancher and a few Border Patrol officers); but in taking the personal approach, his hour-long film mostly avoids the highly flammable issue of illegal immigration. Bonus features include the director’s commentary track, and half an hour of extra footage.--Sam Graham