Just when we thought we’d all heard enough this year about border walls and “illegals,” we stumble upon the quiet release of Desierto, a film set in the very heart of the debate over immigration: the southern border with Mexico.
Desierto yawns open to a desert sunrise, and we find ourselves in the back of a truck carrying a dozen or so people. They are Mexicans seeking to illegally cross the southern border, and from the get-go, it becomes clear that Director Jonás Cuarón seeks to encourage our empathy for their plight. We meet a mechanic carrying a teddy bear from his son, a woman struggling to spurn the advances of another man on the truck, and another woman praying quietly to herself. When the truck breaks down, they have to cross the border over rougher terrain, which presents a much more dangerous passage.
But we learn just how dangerous when Sam, played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan, rolls 
onto the scene in his dusty old pickup truck with his German Shepherd, Tracker, as his sidekick. (Jeffrey, can you hear me? Loved you in The Possession, but these villain roles you’ve been picking lately have me all conflicted, and it’s a problem. Look, just call me and we can grab coffee to discuss…) Sam is a whiskey-drinking, gun-toting, drawl-slurring, dog-loving American who fights for his country—and happens to kill anyone who tries to enter illegally.
Sam makes quick work of hunting the group and murdering them one by one with whatever weapon is most convenient: a bullet, his dog’s bite, the desert heat, whatever. As expected, the film is a violent thriller that has the audience covering its eyes and hoping for narrow escapes.
But Desierto has been falsely pegged as an overly simplistic allegory about one of this year’s wall-promising presidential candidates. Yes, this film tackles a lot of the arguments swirling around illegal immigration like a children’s author sitting down to write a picture book. However, (a) Desierto was actually first released at the Toronto Film Festival in September 2015, long before the momentum of this election year; (b) it’s a bit ridiculous to expect a single horror film to deftly pay homage to all the nuances of the immigration debate; and (c) I think that leaves out much more significant, underlying themes of the film.
Plus, short-changing Desierto as a straightforward good-guy-bad-guy tale perhaps uncovers a bit of viewer bias. I’ve had conversations with flesh-and-blood people who have suggested a similar “vigilante justice” 
approach to undocumented immigrants as a logical policy proposal. When I imagine those people sitting down to this film, I cringe and wonder how many of them would view it as their own revenge fantasy film à la John Wick.
Yes, Desierto really doesn’t stray far from the “crazy killer hunts some folks” formula. And yes, it also tries to tackle character motivations through a handful of forced dialogues between a pair of migrants, and clunky monologues (dogologues?) as Sam chats with Tracker.
However, where I think a lot of people have missed the boat on the beauty of this film, is the deep commentary on the landscape at the center of it all. The “desierto” (desert in Spanish) not only provides the setting for the film, but is actually the main character. The very opening shot of a sunrise over the desert with a single, tiny truck slowly crossing the screen begs us to reconsider who, or what, really has the power here.
Cuarón has showcased the insignificance of humans against a vast landscape as a writer for Gravity, but he really masters the theme in Desierto. Of course much of the film inherently has us cutting between Sam and his scrambling prey to build the suspense. But the desert itself plays an active role in the pursuit. Choking dust rises with each step, rocks crumble away under foot, boulders demand leaps and climbs, and spiny cacti and hissing snakes throw obstacles into the path of the film’s protag
onists, who are throughout it all just barely surviving the searing, unforgiving heat.
The film also weaves in simple, still, expansive shots of the landscape. As the action crosses the vast, immobile scene, it’s as if the wasteland is daring the characters, both villain and hero alike, to try their best.
Okay, so the landscape is a huge part of the film, but why? To show just how hard it is for migrants to make this journey? To add to the suspense? Perhaps. Or perhaps the point is much deeper. We hear Sam at one point say how he doesn’t even like where he lives anymore, and how he has to get out. We also learn that most of the immigrants are forced into the desert due to circumstances out of their control. Pile onto that Cuarón’s majestic cinematography, and you end up with the irony of these seemingly tiny beings fighting to the death over a land that none of them actually want.
In this way, Desierto truly becomes a commentary on all sides of the bitter immigration debate that has been raging over the past few decades. It feels like laughter is rumbling up from the desert—“Go ahead, duke it out, fight your tiny people battles over those lines you’ve created. When you’re done, I’ll still be here, and I’ll always win.”
An effective thriller? Sure, even a nailbiter at times. A true horror? A little bit, if only thanks to JDM’s mad performance. A poignant political piece on the intricacies of migration along the southern border? Come on guys, no. But Desierto unexpectedly pulls us back to provide some surprising commentary on the futility of the whole fight over immigration, the limits of the human condition, and that old adage, “mother nature always wins.”
SpecialK Verdict: Desierto checks the box if you’re on the hunt for a decent thriller, but if you let the cinematography sink in like cool rain on the searing desert floor, you may find that it also offers much, much more.
Desierto opened Friday October 14.
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