Berlinale: Los Lobos

For me the most disturbing film I have seen this year at the Berlinale. An autobiographical film about a mother who goes to the United States with her two sons. While she takes on several jobs, the sons remain alone in the apartment.

The film got under my skin because the truth slowly unfolded. At first I thought it was "only" the three people, a single incident, but later I realized that there are whole districts in which such precarious conditions prevail. And it takes a while before I understand that the at first playful climbing action of the two boys serves to urinate in the kitchen sink because the overstrained, exhausted mother has locked herself in the bathroom.

The role of the church is dubious. The gestures of gratitude have something compulsively sick about them, especially because the mother stands sceptically beside them and actually only wants to have food.