SUJO - Mark Reviews Movies

Sujo, The Forge

Follow on Facebook | Follow on Twitter | Become a Patron

Review by Mark Dujsik | December 5, 2024

The place where the boy was born and grows up has been and will become even more defined by the cartels, as well as the drugs and violence associated with them. The question, then, is what will become of the eponymous character in Sujo, a thoughtful and ultimately devastating look at what it means to come of age under circumstances that seem to set one's future in stone. It doesn't have to be that way, of course, and co-writers/co-directors Astrid Rondero and Fernanda Valadez put that to the test with this story.

It begins, not with the boy, but with his father—more specifically, his father as a boy. By pure chance and within circumstances we can only presume, that boy helps a local cartel leader named Aurelio (Ricardo Luna) retrieve a prized horse that runs off during a party at the crime boss' mansion. Decades later, Josué (Juan Jesús Varela Hernández), nicknamed "El 8" or "The Eighth" for his rank within the cartel's hierarchy, is a sicario, an assassin, for Aurelio's organization.

The father's background is an entire story unto itself, notably and poignantly left untold by Rondero and Valadez's screenplay. There's no reason for it here, because the man's son Sujo (played by Kevin Aguilar as a child and Juan Jesús Varela as a teenager/young man) does not know his father's story. Their relationship is seen only in brief vignettes—of the boy lying next to his father, who says how much he loves his son, and of young Sujo waiting in his father's car while Josué prepares to murder someone. The kid, of course, doesn't know what's happening in that second event or that the killing of this man will inevitably lead to his father's own violent death.

There are rumors, obviously, about Josué, why he did what he did, and what happened to his remains, but that's all Sujo knows as he grows up under the care of his aunt—the sister of his mother, who died in childbirth—Nemesia (Yadira Pérez). Her one goal is to protect her nephew, first from the vengeance-seeking Aurelio, who is willing to murder the 4-year-old boy to prevent any possible retaliation in the future (There's a harrowing scene of the cartel boss searching for Sujo, shot entirely from the kid's point of view beneath a table), and, as the boy grows up, from knowledge of who his father was.

The question hangs over Sujo regardless, as a boy wondering why his father is no longer around, why he must live away from his home and with his aunt in a shack in the hills outside town, why he cannot attend school like his regularly visiting cousins, and why Nemesia treats Josué's car, the only physical thing Sujo has left of his father's, like some cursed thing that's better left to rust amidst the tall grass. When he becomes a teenager, the questions are more pertinent, because he can visit a chapel in cemetery Josué had built for when he died, can actually drive that car, and can hear from locals about how much his father meant to some of them.

The image he comes to have of his father is very unlike the reality of a man who killed many people, who was seen as a traitor to the cartel, and whose remains have nothing to do with that chapel, since Nemesia saw the barrel where, as Aurelio puts it, the sicario's corpse was turned into "water." We, along with Nemesia's and the cousins' mother Rosalia (Karal Garrido), know this much. However, Sujo and his two cousins, Jai (Alexis Varela) and Jeremy (Jairo Hernandez), only know what the aunt and the mother have told them, which is nothing, as well as the words of praise and affection for Josué from cartel members who are looking to recruit the three boys.

In a way, the whole film is about expectations—the boys for their lives, in this place surrounded by the works of the cartel, and ours for how this tale will unfold. The question of fate is raised directly later in the story, but as soon as a young Josué becomes connected to Aurelio, it's the single question driving the course of Sujo's life, his choices, and his destiny in his father's shadow. Can he escape it, or as Jeremy becomes involved in the cartel and needs Sujo's car to help him on various "errands," is his father's influence, defined so much by the society and people Sujo is now surrounded by, inescapable?

We think we know where this story is heading, and indeed, it's almost reflexive to begin preparing ourselves for what seems to be the inevitable tragedy of Sujo's destiny. The film is so precisely and intimately attuned to Sujo, how he is just a confused and lonely boy who grows up to become a young man looking for whatever his place in the world will be, that we connect with the character immediately and throughout his struggles to figure out all of those questions. It's terrifying to watch him get closer and closer to the cartel, not only because Aurelio is still around, but also because the father's example is, perhaps, the only way that story could end for Sujo.

There is a shift in the narrative, which won't be revealed here but which does make Sujo into much more than a product of his family, his environment, and his supposed fate. Rondero and Valadez intentionally keep the activities of the cartel, mostly the drugs and the violence, off-screen, because this is not that story. Death here is sudden, but it haunts and lingers over everything and everyone (especially Nemesia, who has visions of those who are killed). The real question, then, isn't one of inevitability but of how Sujo will take the example of others, use his own talents and ambitions, and find some course for his life that isn't what's expected of him.

Sujo sees these characters as real people—not pawns of society, puppets of destiny, or statistics of cartel activity. It's still a tragedy, to be sure, but even the way it is here breaks expectations and one's heart, ultimately connecting the son and the father in innocence, hopes, and what's truly in a person's name.

Back to Home

Buy Related Products