By Day and By Night (De Día y de Noche) Review

Director Alejandro Molina gives us a futuristic look of how things would be if overpopulation were controlled by manipulating people’s DNA so that half of the population lived during the day while the other half lived during the night in this Mexican Sci-Fi Drama.

The plot is very simple, a woman named Aurora (Sandra Echeverría) has a child but has no idea where she is. Urbano (Manuel Balbi), a scientist, encounters an unknown child and takes her under his guardianship. At the same time, Doctor Prol who has worked on an enzyme that segregates the population, must prove to his superiors that this enzyme has faults and human emotion cannot be revoked. This to save his own life. In the process, he unwillingly becomes a villain in the story. Now, with the help of Urbano, Aurora must devise a way to reunite with her daughter Luna who has inexplicably changed shifts (Luna now lives during the night) before time runs out and are exiled from the Great Metropolis they have been accustomed to. How can Aurora, Luna, and Urbano coexist in worlds divided by Night and Day?

The cinematography is amazing. The dialogue very sophisticated yet simple to understand, however, the absence of dialogue in this film is also very important and carried a heavy impact. In fact, the last 20 or so minutes of the film contains no dialogue whatsoever. When asked why he decided to finish the movie devoid of dialogue, Molina simply said: “Silence might be a good thing for us.” Furthermore, the motif of Day and Night is used wonderfully to illustrate the division between people yet at the same time how powerful it is when uniting people as seen in the eclipse scene.

The actors do a fantastic job in their respective roles. I was very impressed with the acting of the little girl that portrayed Luna. Amazing acting. Echeverría, a well known telenovela actress in Latin America, looks beautiful in this film and definitely connects with the audience through her performance.

The film does not come without its cons. It is very slow in getting to the point. There is rarely any action. Not a clear pursuit by the villains of the film. And one of the biggest drawbacks is that there’s no sense of time and place. All the audience knows is that the story takes place in a futuristic society on a location referred to as the Great Metropolis. Also, there are many long takes so if you are one of those people that get impatient quickly, this will definitely get a bit annoying. The audience is not given too much background information on the film’s characters and their names are known only on a first name basis. In fact, one can say the film concentrates only on the “here and now.”

Several themes come into play. Hope, Family Values, Perseverance, Love, Free Will, etc. The failure of the leaders that are running this society in eradicating human emotion and anything related to it shows just how powerful the human mind and person is, and how unique we all are as individuals. I have to say, this film is so creative and intelligent with its theme or themes that this is not for all audiences. Furthermore, the ending will not please everyone. The film has an open ending leaving it up to the audience to decide what happens to the characters in particular the protagonists of the movie. This is not bad by all means but it may frustrate some people who just sat through 90 minutes waiting for the happy Hollywood ending that may or may not have come. If you give this film a chance you may be pleasantly surprised.

SCREENINGS AT SBIFF: Monday January 31, 2PM at Metro 4 Theater IV in Santa Barbara.

WATCH THE TRAILER:

By Day and By Night

Q&A With Alejandro Molina

Alejandro Molina was gracious enough to stay after the film to answer some questions. He revealed that “By Day and By Night” took him 7 years to make with the help of the Mexican government due mostly to budget issues. Sci-Fi movies are not too common in Mexico and the fan base for this film are not too flattering as Molina put it. Really, the film’s success is found outside of Mexico. Molina stated that the inspiration behind this film came to him ten years ago when the Mexican government divided workers’ shifts in the public transportation system to have construction happening by night as well as day in hopes that this would maximize productivity. Molina also said that when he envisioned the futuristic society of the Great Metropolis portrayed in “By Day and By Night,” he turned to Mexico’s ancient past when big, heavy stone boulders adorned cities. This is especially evident in the exterior metropolis shots. Molina shed light on what he was trying to convey in the film and explained in detail some of the film’s more indigestible moments, but of course I will not reveal that. This film is simply a must see if you are into movies that make you actually think.