There is a striking unworldly quality to They Made Us the Night (DOX:Award Competition), which trades on folk myths and supernatural visions despite its core story being about the challenges faced by the inhabitants of a small Mexican town that, according to the maps, does not even exist. Playful, elusive and engrossing the film allows its protagonists to tell their own story even if that means heading into the realm of magical realism at times.
The film signals its intent right from the start as mood music and a cacophony of animal sounds builds against a black screen prior to the opening credits. The music and sounds become vaguely oppressive, but when images emerge they are underwater, beneath a canoe before a we hear a voice calling voice for one of the film’s protagonist, Adonis, to wake up.
Adonis is the youngest member of the Salinas Tello family, and the one still with a youthful energy as he heads into the surf or gleefully plays around with farm animals. The family – replete with an ageing matriarch at its core – live in the aftermath of Cyclone Dolores which hit Mexico in 1974, flooding the town of Charco Redondo, and forcing its inhabitants to move away to found the town of San Marquitos, which still does not exist on any map.
In the run-up to the celebration of the town’s patron saint, the family matriarch provides for her children and grandchildren by praying for others at weddings and funerals. When she returns home, she tells her people’s original myths while trying to keep the spiritual connection to the nature that swallowed their town but which also now keeps them alive.
Despite the fact that San Marquitos isn’t supposed to exist in a region historically overlooked by various government authorities, it is still a coastal community full of life and idiosyncratic energy and a place where modern-day worries are set against ancient traditions and beliefs.
Mexican filmmaker Antonio Hernández allows non-fiction and fiction to blur with everyday rituals narrated by the locals, and the film includes moments of street festival joy, religious fervour and old-fashioned drinking in a ramshackle bar. The end result is a remarkable and engrossing portrait of a group of people living in a strange and unusual place. As the Salinas Tello family prepare for the upcoming patronal festivities the film offers an instructive and at times playful observation of a community juggling old ways with contemporary lifestyles and indulgences.
While the family’s youngest son Adonis would rather surf, mess around and eat pizza than dance the traditional devil’s dance, They Made Us the Night offers up a visceral and often dreamy delve into a world juggling its sense of its own reality. The sound design and Luis Ortega’s impressive score add much to the sense of mystery and beauty and offers up a rare immersive quality that helps make it a unique piece of cinema.
Mexico, 2022, 76mins
Dir/scr: Antonio Hernández
Production: Tangram Films, Detona, Ambulante
Producer: Fernando Delgado
Cinematography: Alonso Maranon
Editors: Fernando Felgado, Ximena Pineda, Martha Uc
Music: Luis Ortega
With: Adonis Salinas Tello, Fabian Salinas Tello, Humberto Salinas Tello, Placido Salinas Tello, Humberto Salinas Valencia, Romualda Tella Lopez
