Estación Catorce

No train ever stops at the Estación Catorce (San Luis Potosí, Mexico) anymore, even though several cargo trains pass through this place every day. As for the rest, the community is pretty quiet: most of the people are poor, they don’t have jobs, and they can barely make ends meet. Little 7-year-oldLuis lives here with his siblings and grandmother. At regular intervals, Luis has to flee from the small school and hide in his home when a column of vehicles from the drug cartel drop by to sow death and destruction. One day, when the criminals pack up and leave again, Manuel, his father, grabs Luis and decides to take his chance and go plunder the home of a rich couple who got murdered. He asks Luis to help him take the big pink couch back to their home, so he can sell it for quite some money later.

The violence we see at the beginning of the film – and not even that much – is not representative of the rest of the film. Life in the community goes on monotonously and we see Manuel looking for a job in vain. All the while trying to be a father figure to Luis and giving him an expensive football he cannot even afford. One day, Manuel decides to sell the couch and in the early morning he sets off on a long journey with Luis to the far off city. Estación Catorceis a study of the common Mexican man: how toxic masculinity is handed down from father to son and how this, even in a small family, is at the root of how violent Mexican society has become. A beautiful portrait of growing pains of a small boy that wonders about his father’s actions.