Julio Hernández Cordón has made a career out of making gritty dramas that illuminate contemporary urban culture. Whether following skater vampires in the Mexico City-set Te prometo anarquía (I Promise You Anarchy) or biking girls in San Jose, Costa Rica in Atrás hay relámpagos, his films have forced audiences to take note of casts of characters that rarely get the big screen treatment. That’s certainly the case in his latest movie, Cómprame un revolver (Buy Me A Gun), which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival’s Fortnight program. Back in Mexico, Hernández Cordón has set his sights this time on a young girl named Huck. Wearing a mask to hide her gender she helps her addict father as they take care of an abandoned baseball field where the narcos gather to play.
In the very first clip of the film, we see Hernández Cordón roving camera give us long takes that puts us squarely within that baseball camp. It’s night and Huck, along with her very own band of Lost Boys (all of whom also don masks and ratty clothes) are both entertained and wary of Huck’s father. A tad unhinged, he’s brought his young daughter a makeshift lightsaber and is all too eager to mock-fight the kids with it. Scored by Sister Nancy’s reggae tune “Bam Bam,” the clip is just this side of unsettling; the roughhousing between the masked adult and these kids is playful but there’s a palpable desperation throughout. It’s giving us Beasts of the Southern Wild meets City of God vibes. Take a look for yourself in the first official clip of the film.
Buy Me A Gun screened as part of this year’s Cannes Film Festival.