By Jeffrey Sipe and Nina Rodriguez
Non-professional actors are very much a part of Mexico’s independent cinema, even though the films in which they appear often feature professionals leading the cast. “Journeys” (Travesías), director Sergio Flores Thorija’s tragic take on what he refers to as one city—Tijuana/San Diego—divided by a border, employs an entire cast of non-professionals.
“I worked almost a year with them,” Thorija explained in a recent interview with Mezcal and a Movie. “It was a huge challenge for them, and they had to get over their nervousness. I don’t like using professional actors because they are representing someone else through their dress, their mannerisms, their speech. In ‘Travesias,’ the reactions you see on the screen are exactly as they are in real life. The characters have the same names as the actors in real life. They are themselves in these situations.”
“Travesias” tells the story of two realities: life in Tijuana and life in San Diego. After a young man leaves Tijuana to cross to the U.S., his sister, Alejandra, receives a phone call informing her that his body has been found in the desert. Stunned, refusing to accept her brother’s fate, and determined to cross the border in search of him, she takes on additional work as a stripper in a Tijuana strip joint/sex club, where she is subjected to realistically explicit abuse. Thorija explained his decision: “She’s representing thousands of women and men working in that industry. I think it makes a much larger impact to show it this way rather than candy-coating it.”
Meanwhile, on the San Diego side of the border, Victor, a high-strung tech bro who writes, “I am a millionaire,” over and over in his notebook—the fruits of the silliest positivity training in the U.S.—agrees to cross the border to Tijuana to celebrate a friend’s birthday, setting into motion events that will drastically alter his life.
“Victor is based on a lot of people I have met,” Thorija said. “He shows an extremely superficial way of seeing life, and that is like [the actor’s] personality in real life. And I wanted the audience to feel that … In the end, though, he has a lot of charm and is a good person, very charismatic. So, I want the audience to connect with him, to be in his shoes just as they are in Alejandra’s.”
At the end of the film, both Victor and Alejandra again find themselves on opposite sides of the border, this time on each other’s turf, grappling with the most mundane but sometimes devastating realities wrought by that imaginary line in the sand.
“My films are about daily life, small things that happen, our feelings, our dreams,” said Thorija. “That’s why I do these super-long takes. There are only about 50 cuts in the film because the way I shoot, the audience is kind of in the shoes of the characters all the time. You are discovering the city and the environment along with them … That is one of my main goals: for the audience to connect with the character.”
Having premiered at the Morelia Film Festival, “Travesías” was also selected for the Cinetecaa’s Muestra. As part of the film’s theatrical release, director Sergio Flores Thorija will be in town to present “Travesias” at Compartimento Cinematográfico in the first week of November.
