The Mexican film Identifying Features / Sin señas particulares, the debut feature by director Fernanda Valadez is currently ranked as the third best movie of 2021 so far, according to Rotten Tomatoes. With a 100% critic rating approval, and a 100% audience score, the film is on the number three spot just behind the Bosnian war drama Quo Vadis, Aida? and the COVID-19 documentary 76 days.
Co-produced and co-written by Astrid Rondero, the acclaimed and gripping Mexican border thriller was the winner of the World Cinema Dramatic Audience and Screenplay awards at the Sundance Film Festival—where it had its world premiere in January 2020—and the winner of the Gotham Award for Best International Feature. The film was released in the United States and Canada last January by prestigious American distributor Kino Lorber, and it got very positive reviews including being selected a New York Times Critic’s Pick.
Identifying Features tells the story of middle-aged Magdalena (Mercedes Hernandez), who has lost contact with her son after he took off with a friend from their town of Guanajuato to cross the border into the U.S., in hopes of finding work. Desperate to find out what happened to him—and to know whether or not he’s even alive—she embarks on an ever-expanding and increasingly dangerous journey to discover the truth.
At the same time, a young man named Miguel (David Illescas) has returned to Mexico after being deported from the U.S., and eventually his path converges with Magdalena’s. From this simple but urgent premise, director Valadez has crafted in her striking debut feature a lyrical, suspenseful slow burn, constructed equally of moments of beauty and horror, and which leads to a startling, shattering conclusion.
