The Box (La Caja) Review - Lorenzo Vigas Closes Out His Trilogy With A Whimper

In 2004, Lorenzo Vigas started a trilogy with the short film Los Elefantes Nunca Olvidan (The English title is Elephants Never Forget, a story about a boy named Juan (Guillermo Muñoz) seeking revenge against his father (Gonzalo Cubero). It’s not the best short film I’ve seen, but it sets into place the core tenets of what would become a trilogy of stories: a young boy looking for belonging in his father that he will never receive, the audience having revelations about the characters the same time the characters do, and the art of people watching, among many others.

Vigas followed this up with 2015’s From Afar (Spanish title is Desde Allá), which featured a 50-year-old man named Armando (Alfredo Castro), who pays young men he finds in Caracas for company. One day, he meets Elder (Luis Silva), who leads a local gang, and the two change each others’ lives through their meeting. It’s not much better than Elephants Never Forget, but the storytelling is much stronger from Vigas. I won’t spoil the surprises that excited me most during the film, but it’s worth a watch just to see everything unfold.

Now, Vigas returns with La Caja (English title The Box), a tale of Hatzín Leyva (Hatzín Navarrete), a Mexican teenager on a journey to recover his father's remains. However, upon seeing a stranger who looks familiar (Hernán Mendoza), Hatzín investigates this stranger to answer his doubts and hope for the truth.

So, is The Box a worthy addition to Vigas’ trilogy of films about fatherhood? Yes, but there are caveats.

Fans of Vigas’ previous films will be immediately disappointed with how disconnected this film feels compared to the other two films in the trilogy. As always, no spoilers, but there’s enough said about fatherhood or the concept of it within the story. I’m not saying that Vigas needs to stay in one box. But, if the concept of fatherhood is core to the trilogy, I’m not sure why Vigas felt the need to paint with new brushes in the trilogy's final film.

I could see an argument for newcomers starting with this film. I wouldn’t recommend it, but given that none of the characters from the previous films appear, this could be an excellent jumping-on point - especially for those wanting to expand the kinds of movies they watch. The Box has this Western feel to it - more specifically, neo-Western. This film is an exploration of how factory work has changed the face of Mexico, although Vigas doesn’t attempt to go much further than the surface level regarding the politics behind this new kind of work. If you need a guide for how this movie feels, imagine if the Amazon scenes from Nomadland were part of Hell or High Water’s main narrative, and you’ve got a pretty good feel for things.

Navarrete does the best he can here as Hatzín Levya. He’s just not given enough agency in the script to go out and be his character. Instead, he feels like a proxy for Vigas’ feelings about his childhood, including a few odd scenes involving salt and Hatzín getting slapped. Also, there are many scenes without dialogue. Some may call this a representation of the character feeling like he has no voice, but that doesn’t match Hatzín’s journey through the film.

Ultimately, I lay these problems at Vigas’ feet, as this seems to be a script and direction issue rather than anything Navarrete was doing wrong. I would love to see more from this actor, though.

Mendoza as Mario Enderle is a similar story. He’s supposed to be the source of longing for Hatzín, but I never got a sense of Mario’s past, present, or future with Hatzín, so I couldn’t latch on to his acting, which is very minimal.

Both actors are excellent at using their faces to act - Hatzín, mainly. He can pass the meaning behind each encounter to the audience through the tiniest of facial expressions.

The Box doesn’t feature any score. Instead, any music featured in the film is diegetic, meaning that the music is only featured when the characters are listening to the radio. This did not work for me, as the songs are a little on the nose - literally saying what the characters will do.

That said, the sound design by Waldir Xavier is impeccable. There are little things like audio panning around the camera spatially, giving further depth to its 5.1 sound mix by Jaime Baksht & Michelle Couttolenc.

The cinematography by Sergio Armstrong G. also gets high marks. Armstrong paints his canvas across the Mexican desert - watching Hatzín and Mario with a mix of up-close (with some great bokeh) and wide shots. Another massive win for Armstrong’s cinematography is his use of day-for-night shots, which rival Nope’s in my eyes. Sure, some will be able to tell that night scenes were shot during the day, but these could be quickly passed off as nighttime shots.

If you’re a fan of Vigas’ other films, you might like The Box. It all depends on your enjoyment of his previous film in this trilogy, From Afar, which tries similar tonal shifts in the trilogy as this film does, but to a more extreme extent. Your enjoyment will also live and die on the one-note acting and script, both of which are paper-thin. Much of the film leads the viewer to the question, “why is Hatzín so determined?” - something the movie never seems interested in answering. Likewise, the actual conclusion to the film comes out of nowhere - having zero catharsis. Nevertheless, I hope you enjoy the film much more than I did.

★★

The Box is available to watch in select theaters and stream with a MUBI subscription.

Until next time!

Thanks to Thomas Stoneham-Judge from Movies For Reel, Shane Conto, Joseph Davis, David Walters, Ambula Bula, Matthew Simpson, Thom Blackburn, and Beatrice AKA Shakesqueer, for supporting Austin B Media on Patreon!