Barrio 13 al desnudo (2000) User Reviews

A powerful and real view of the daily reality of poor and abandoned barrios of our continent

[arroyoribera · 10/10 · 24 December 2007]

Beginning and ending with the unending promises of Mexican politicians, Barrio 13 Stark Naked is a film based in the daily life of many Mexicans and Central Americans struggling with today's realities -- poverty, desperation, misery and political betrayal. The film presents the daily conditions of a people abandoned by its government and the Mexican ruling class to show the underside of families living with a lack of employment, addition even of children, corruption, and desperation to simply be able to feed one's children. If this movie does not make you cry, you died somewhere on the road to life. It is a social commentary told in the voices of hungry children begging in the streets, children sent to the streets by their mothers who seek just a moments relief from the "shared crisis". Powerful social imagery are combined with souls seeking basic human love and needs, interspersed with crass political slogans and hollow institutions. In the end, it is a powerful condemnation of the failed politics of a governing class that has betrayed its people.