Las Letras (The Letters). 2015. Mexico. Directed by Pablo Chavarría Gutiérrez. In Spanish, Tzotzil; English subtitles. 77 min.
Las Letras is an exercise in (and exorcism of) outrage, a performative representation of indigenous Mexican professor Alberto Patishtán’s random arrest and erroneous 13-year imprisonment for a brutal slaying. Gutiérrez’s camera stalks the countryside, ghostlike, observing wandering lost children and a woman’s balletic expression of grief, punctuated by Patishtán’s proud, hopeful jailhouse letters to his family.
A Doc Fortnight/Cinema Tropical collaboration