Review on entry – Review on FilmTotaal

direction: Alejandro Rojas, Juan Sebastian Vasquez | Scenario: Alejandro Rojas, Juan Sebastian Vasquez | ejaculate: Bruna Cossi (Elena), Alberto Ammann (Diego), and others | game time: 77 minutes | year: 2023

Your hands are wet when it’s almost your turn at passport control. Blind panic as you mentally check whether you actually put that passport in your bag. This is probably well known to anyone who has ever flown. While one person can get rid of this stress immediately, the other must feel extremely anxious. While being very minimalistic upon entry Directors Alejandro Rojas and Juan Sebastian Vasquez attempt to expose the racial profiling that lies behind it.

Diego and his partner Elena, from Venezuela, leave their life in Barcelona behind to make a fresh start in the United States. With a large stack of printed documents in their pockets, they travel to Miami, but while being transported to New York, they are stopped by immigration authorities. The pair are taken to the airport’s catacombs, and there, hidden from public view, they undergo escalating interrogation. In this frustrating no man’s land, Diego and Elena are repeatedly told that they haven’t arrived in the United States yet.

Bruna Cusi and Alberto Ammann know how to portray the disbelief and anxiety in their characters well. The camera never leaves the two alone for a moment, and although the strong realistic approach initially makes you think about American immigration policy, the film quickly falls into cliché. At first, the stereotypical border guard leaves no doubt about the identity of the villains, but as more incriminating information gradually emerges for Diego, more and more unrest is sown.

The image of Diego the victim changes to that of the adulterous, manipulative loser. His good reasons for emigrating and his desperate attempts to secede from Venezuela, the most interesting elements of the plot, become buried under a layer of illogical suspense. Diego’s brother waits on the other side of customs, noisy renovations and Elena’s diabetes should attract attention, but they distract from the larger issues.

Rojas and Vasquez ultimately need seventy-seven minutes to work out an abrupt and unsatisfying ending. You might think it’s nice and short, but if both had stopped at forty-five minutes, this would have been a powerful film whose political message could have been better preserved, and which could also have been broadcast on TV, because that’s where upon entry Especially at home.