Backyard (2009)

Backyard Poster
Original Title: Backyard: El traspatio

An astonishing fictional account of the unending series of murders of young women in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, which began in 1996. Most of the victims are low-paid laborers who have been drawn to the town by the possibility of work at American-owned factories. In the film Mexican police officer Blanca Bravo is sent to Cuidad Juarez to investigate and comes to learn realities of these women's lives, as well as the truth about a police force and local power structure embodied by entrepreneur Mickey Santos that has ceased to care.

Film Overview
"Backyard" (in Spanish, "El Traspatio") is a Mexican criminal activity and drama movie from 2009. Directed by Carlos Carrera and based upon a movie script by Sabina Berman, the movie casts Ana de la Reguera, Juan Carlos Barreto, Asur Zagada, among others as leading roles. The movie takes on the real-life epidemic of female murders in Ciudad Juarez, a city located surrounding Texas, United States. Despite being imaginary, the motion picture holds a crucial mirror to this grim reality.

Plot Summary
"Backyard" introduces Ana de la Reguera as Blanca Bravo, a proactive female law enforcement officer who takes an investigative trip to Ciudad Juarez, where numerous ladies were raped and murdered ruthlessly from the early 1990s. To reveal these catastrophes, Bravo digs beyond the shallow stereotypes put on victims, typically factory workers caught in hardship, fighting versus a corrupt system apparently reluctant to safeguard them.

The film represents the grim reality of residing in among the most harmful cities for females. Throughout the plot, the audience gets to know the stories and sadness behind each character, the worry they cope with daily, the injustice they have a hard time, and the corruption they battle versus.

Deciphering Corruption
Detective Bravo courageously examines deeply established corruption to discover justice for the countless victims. As she dives much deeper, she finds a nexus in between the corrupt regional political leaders, factory owners, and the law enforcement representatives with the ongoing murders. She exposes Ciudad Juarez's grim underworld, where human life, specifically ladies's lives, is of no worth, their disappearances seldom traced, and their harsh murders frequently go unpunished.

Family Perspectives
"Backyard" sensitively captures the psychological toll on the victims' households. Reguera's character Bravo fulfills numerous families demanding justice for their cherished daughters, sis, or partners who meet inexplicably brutal ends or have vanished with no trace. The movie poignantly reveals the households' despair, pain, the never-ending wait, and their useless efforts to follow leads and coax details out of an indifferent police.

Critical Acclaim
The movie does an outstanding task of humanizing the victims instead of simply data in a continuous crime wave. It has actually received important recognition for the raw and real representation of the victims, their families, their situations, and their battles. The film highlights discrimination, inequality, power dynamics, corruption, and gender violence.

A significant scene is the depiction of a demonstration scene, where a group of women did an efficiency of "Un violador en tu camino" (A rapist in your method), a feminist demonstration intervention by a Chilean feminist group, to protest against State-induced gender violence.

Also noteworthy is the movie's successful attempt to stay genuine in presenting socio-economic influences behind such criminal activities without creating a poverty-porn-type masterpiece.

Conclusion
Throughout its runtime, "Backyard" preserves a mournful and tense atmosphere - a grim suggestion of Ciudad Juarez's dark reality. It uses the backdrop of these criminal offenses to portray the methodical nature of gender violence and common hazardous mindsets towards women. Above all, it ends up being an expedition into the corruption from which such heinous violence stems, a ruthless pointer of the horrifying manifestation of inequalities in society. It makes a strong statement, utilizing cinema as an effective social commentary. The movie "Backyard", in essence, is a hard-hitting sociopolitical movie that pays tribute to the victims and throws light on a grave issue still widespread in today's society.

Top Cast

  • Ana de la Reguera (small)
    Ana de la Reguera
    Blanca
  • Asur Zagada (small)
    Asur Zagada
    Juana Sanchez
  • Marco Pérez (small)
    Marco Pérez
    Fierro
  • Iván Cortes (small)
    Iván Cortes
    Cutberto
  • Jimmy Smits (small)
    Jimmy Smits
    Mickey Santos
  • Alejandro Calva (small)
    Alejandro Calva
    Comandante
  • Joaquín Cosío (small)
    Joaquín Cosío
    Peralta
  • Sayed Badreya (small)
    Sayed Badreya
    El Sultán
  • Carolina Politi
    Sara
  • Adriana Paz (small)
    Adriana Paz
    Hilda
  • Lisa Owen (small)
    Lisa Owen
    Silvia