For this assignment, I went to the Museum of Modern Arts; and watched Prayers to the Stolen, directed by Tatiana Huezo. Prayers to the stolen is a film about the story of three little girls who become teenagers in a time where their small town in Mexico is at war. The film is compelling from the start as it takes place in a poor, small town where everyone knows each other. The film begins with images of  Ana one of the three little girls playing in the dirt with her mother. The film suddenly changes tone a couple of minutes into the film, as the mother asked, the little girl to get inside a hole they dug. The image of the little girl inside the hole lingered on the screen for longer than comfortable, foreshadowing what was to come.

Later on in the film Ana and her mother were doing their daily chores, all of a sudden, they hear a vehicle approaching their house in the distance. The mother cues Ana to hide. A group of men gets off the vehicle. Ana’s mother opens the door with a machete behind her back. The men ask for her daughter, to which she answers that she only has one son. The group of men furious go through her house confirming what she had told them. To their surprise, they couldn’t find anything against her. They left but before they did they fired a gun in her direction to send a message. Ana’s mother ran to the hole where Ana was hiding to her relief Ana was without harm as the men did not find her. They both laid inside the hole crying. This scene was beyond powerful as it pretty much comes full circle revealing to the viewer the reason for the earlier images in the film. It also shows the state of the town and how those people lived in constant fear. The main issue presented in this film is that the narcos would randomly come into those small towns and go house by house for their young daughters.

The lighting looked so minimal as if one was physically there in the location where the story took place. Also, the lighting looks so flawless and compliments the actor’s complexion nicely. In terms of music and sound, this film doesn’t have as much dialogue but in the scenes where silence is predominant, it also plays a big role in the overall meaning of the film. It captures the fear of the characters and also how the kidnaps have affected the community and how they dealt with their pain and grief for the stolen. The sound design was rich with various sound elements both used to add suspense and to capture the world of the story. The camera movements looked convention for a fictional film; however, in some instances, some of the shots seemed to be in a documentary style. For example, in a scene, one of the three girls were on their way to school when a helicopter was passing by it released some kind of poison in the air. The girl notices and runs faster to her school. When she gets there the other two girls from their friend group go after her into the restroom where they both quickly pour water all over her. In this scene, the camera follows them into an intimate space and shows them being vulnerable to the attacks but also being united in that process. The tracking shot of the characters into the restroom rather than cutting to it made the scene feel more like a documentary rather than fictional. It felt as if the viewer was living that horrendous experience with the characters