31/08/2023 - VENICE 2023: The feature debut by sibling filmmakers Mariana and Santiago Arriaga sees a group of bereaved Mexican teenagers embark on some risky vigilante justice

l-r: Theo Goldin, Federica García and Máximo Hollander in Upon Open Sky

For all the great narrative artworks on the subject of revenge, there’s an abiding sense that art, or fiction, is exclusively its domain. We may feel a desire for righteous justice at the expense of someone else, but this seldom escapes the realm of fantasy or our imaginations. Revenge, despite the biblical warnings against “an eye for an eye”, has settled quite neatly into a narrative “trope”, a very effective motor to get from motivation point A to catharsis point B.

Guillermo Arriaga, the decorated screenwriter for Upon Open Sky [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (and previously several of Alejandro González Iñárritu’s breakthrough films), has specialised in revenge narratives of an “elevated pulp” sort; here, he composes a screenplay for his two offspring, Mariana and Santiago Arriaga, to direct, making it a true family affair of a debut feature, which has enjoyed a premiere in Venice’s Orizzonti section and will soon also screen at Toronto. But how telling is it that it centres on children avenging the death of their slain father?

Upon Open Sky is notable for placing the burden of vengeance in young, inexperienced hands – those who tremble while trying to hold the weapon straight, although wouldn’t we all? With the narrative picking up in 1993, young Salvador (Theo Goldin) is on a road journey across the Coahuila desert with his father (Manolo Cardona, his character unnamed), their destination an extended family reunion, combined tellingly with some big-game hunting. With the menacing negative space of the ever-expanding horizon, and their tyres singeing the asphalt, we have a premonition of something; it comes when a shipping truck that we later learn is steered by Lucio Estrada (Julio César Cedillo) careens into their vehicle in an apparent hit-and-run, killing the father yet sparing the son.

With this inciting incident operating as a de facto prologue, we continue in 1995, with the victim’s descendants, Fernando (Máximo Hollander) and his younger brother Salvador, still stricken and grieving his demise. They’re also now apparently settled in a mixed family, with their mother having remarried and added the intrepid Paula (Federica García) as a stepsister. The process of coming of age is combined with the dispelling of their grief, as they use the cover of a recreational road trip to track down Estrada, who’s living unpunished for the death, whether it was manslaughter or premeditated (as Fernando in his more paranoid moments surmises).

What ensues is a mixture of hackneyed, overextended and belatedly dramatic content: a quest with a predictable outcome of violent or poetic justice lying in wait, yet with a perverse fascination that keeps you watching. Paula is forced to leave behind, by force, the abusive boyfriend, Eduardo (Sergio Mayer Mori), who accompanies her initially on the trip. Her stepbrothers are sexually curious about her as well, so there is much cautious personal negotiation, and a gradually more comfortable setting of boundaries as we realise how much is at stake, and what new emotional balance could be attained, at the journey’s end.

At its best, this tale of youngsters thrust into being arbitrators of life and death has the air of Lord of the Flies; otherwise, the absurdity of the situation, and the headstrong charisma of the leads, gives it the aura of a Latin American crime extension of Stranger Things. Revenge is futile, and we are all morally fallible – this is presented as more of a revelation than a formality for the audience. But there is a certain welly, complemented by an effective spaghetti-western string score, in Upon Open Sky’s attempts.

Upon Open Sky is a co-production between Mexico and Spain, staged by K&S Films and Clave Intelectual. World sales are courtesy of Film Factory.