La caja (2021)

Hatzín lives with his grandmother in Mexico City. He is told that his father, Esteban, who died in a mining accident, is among those whose bodies were recently exhumed in the north of the country. So the teenager travels there alone by train to collect his father’s remains. After submitting the required documents and signing the papers, Hatzín receives an identity card found with the body and a rectangular metal box about 60 centimeters long containing his father’s remains. Hatzín remains unfazed and assures his grandmother over the phone that he is fine. On his way back the next day, Hatzín sees through the bus window a man on the street who looks very much like the photo on his father’s identity card. But when he gets off the bus and speaks to him, the stranger introduces himself as Mario Enderle. Still convinced that the man is his father, Hatzín begins to stalk him. At first Mario wants to get rid of him, but soon gives up resisting because of Hatzín’s persistence. Mario works as a labor recruiter for the factories in the area. He takes Hatzín with him on his daily rounds, and Hatzín experiences Mario as a compassionate person who provides workers with warm clothes free of charge. Mario entrusts Hatzín with recording how many workers are recruited and checking that they are paid properly at the factories. When Mario is tasked with finding 1,500 workers for a new factory, Hatzín becomes an indispensable member of his small team, and Mario lets him move in with him and his pregnant wife. When Hatzín calls his grandmother, he assures her that everything is fine, but his work often crosses moral boundaries. Still, he sets his misgivings aside and helps Mario find desperate people willing to work in the factories, people who see no other way to support their families. They keep the workers in the dark about the harsh conditions there.