Five years ago, on March 14th 2018, a car pulled alongside Brazilian Councilwoman Marielle Franco’s vehicle and fired several shots, killing both the politician and her driver. The crime, which enraged a country undergoing grave political turmoil, still remains unsolved. The closest authorities have gotten to a solid verdict is a witness testimony stating a former military police officer wanted the Councilwoman dead. The motivation? Franco’s relentless community work in areas of interest to the local militia, long known to have close ties to the military police. 
A similar incident kicks off the central conflict in Amat Escalante’s “Lost in the Night”, the latest of the director’s films to premiere in Cannes following “Blood” (2005), “The Bastards” (2008) and his Best Director Palme-winning “Heli” (2013). Here, an activist disappears after campaigning against the establishment of a mine in her small Mexican town. Three years later, a clue leads her son Emiliano (Juan Daniel García Treviño) to the imposing house of the Aldama family. 
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Nested within the cold stone structure are artist Rigoberto (Fernando Bonilla), his celebrity singer wife Carmen (Bárbara Mori), Carmen’s eldest daughter Mónica (Ester Expósito), and the couple’s young child. Rigo is a bourgeois liberal who offers regurgitated statements such as “There is no ethical consumption” while wearing a graphic tee stamped with Groucho Marx. His penchant for controversy puts him in the bad books of the Aluxes, a fictional religion slash cult cleverly named after the Alux, a Mayan creature believed to cause mayhem, mischief and destruction. 
And indeed destruction comes, seeping through the quietness of Escalante’s signature static shots, the stillness of the dry surroundings interrupted by the piercing sounds of chaos — the shouts of quarrelling lovers, the cries of a desperate mother, and tires hungrily cutting through dirt. Emiliano comes as the antithesis to the extravagant loudness of the Aldamas, his enigmatic silence an irresistible offering to a family far too used to dissecting every aspect of their loaded interactions. (“We all go to therapy,” says Rigo to Emiliano when cluelessly enquiring on whether the young man has ever thought of seeking psychological support to deal with the grief of losing his mother.)  
Escalante reunites with his writer brother Martín Escalante for the first time in 15 years, the duo once more tapping into the exploration of issues of class and otherness that permeates their previous collaboration, “The Bastards.” The word disappear is purposefully used here as a verb as people in this area of Mexico don’t simply vanish — they are disappeared. The implication of an active force behind the vanishing ever-present, a chillingly effective choice that sees the repetition of the word as a poignant reminder of the unbeatable forces that rule the land. 
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García Trevino movingly embodies the quiet rage of those painfully aware of injustices likely to never be remedied. The violence within him is a bubbling cauldron, always dangerously close to implosion and, yet, Escalante gives his protagonist the moral compass of a hero — violence is there, but there is a lingering, perhaps even comforting, sense that Emiliano will resist taking a bite of the sweet apple of vengeance. His kindness is never more felt than when in the presence of his sweetheart Jazmín, played by first-time actress Mafer Osio. The two spend lulling afternoons excitedly prancing into the territory of sexual discovery, giggling half-naked through the sprawling river side. In their isolation, they are not unlike Adam and Eve. 
From the towering viewpoint of the Aldama residence, Mónica watches the two, thirstly sipping from the loving naïvete she lost far too young. The teen racks up thousands and thousands of views on social media by posting mock-up suicides á la Harold Chasen, defending her perceived creative choice by pouting her lips and boldly — albeit unoriginally — declaring that “the ability to end it all” is what makes us human. This harnessing of grief in the name of creativity is practiced by Rigoberto, too, although the swankily-dressed artist chooses to tap into the pain of others for inspiration, his own life missing the sorrow that acts as fuel for his creative outbursts. 
In this sense, “Lost in the Night” functions as a study of absence — the absence of others, of talent, of answers, of peace, of love. By amalgamating all those lacks, Escalante reaches an unsurprising yet chillingly effective conclusion, with those who once wished for tragedy to knock on their door, at last, get the call. [B+] 
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