Film Review: Identifying Features

Many of the so-called “hordes of illegal immigrants” we’ve been hearing about so dismissively for the last four years are just teenage boys who have left home in search of work, as first-time director Fernanda Valadez shows us in the touching film “Identifying Features” (Sin Señas Particulares).

Her heroine is a mom named Magdalena (Mercedes Hernández), whose teenage son Jesús left their home in Guanajuato, Mexico with a friend named Rigo to try to find work across the border. But neither boy has been heard from since, and Magda simply can’t let that ride. She decides to go to the border herself and try to find out what happened to Jesús. Her friend Chuya (Laura Elena Ibarra), another mom who has been down this road before, gives her some tips.

At the border, Magda needs to sign up and stand in line. It all seems so … impersonal, and when on a videotape of victims’ possessions Magda spots a duffle bag that belonged to Jesús, she does what Chuya has advised: “Don’t sign anything without a blood match, because if you do and it isn’t his, they won’t help you anymore.” But her main advice is “Don’t get caught, because the penalty is deportation.”

So Magda goes off on a private odyssey to try to trace her son’s steps, in hopes of finding someone who can tell her anything about Jesús. It will involve bus rides, long trudges in unfamiliar territory and talking to people who may be dangerous – and it may all be in vain.

She bumps into another searcher: Miguel (David Illescas), himself a teenager, returning to Mexico from U.S. deportation, looking for his mother. They go their separate ways, only to meet again in a shattering conclusion.

Valadez’s shooting style flips from lyrical and lovely countryside scenes to the horrors of the border and all that entails to dreamy episodes of the past – mostly accomplished by using the technique of blurring the shot. Some might find it annoying, but I didn’t find it so, and the superb portrayal by Hernández engages our interest throughout. 

Clarice Jensen’s score reflects the rest of the film: spare, but effective, sometimes loud like a blast from a car radio, other times quietly lyrical.

“Identifying Features” is an impressive debut feature. Heck, it’s an impressive feature, period. I look forward to Valadez’s next effort.

“Identifying Features” opens Jan. 22 at San Diego’s Digital Gym Virtual Cinema.