Ruido / Noise (Netflix, 2023)

‘Donde estan?’ is the question at the heart of the powerful and moving Mexican movie Ruido (Noise). Where are they? That is the question the women in the movie ask? What happened to our missing daughters, sons, husbands?

Ruido tells the story of a mother desperately searching for her daughter who's been missing for nine months.

It’s a universal story that symbolizes all of Mexico’s mothers who have done a desperate search for a loved one over the years. 

In Ruido it is the story of Julia (Julietta Egurolla, simply magnificent) whose daughter Ger went on a vacation with her friends in a part of Mexico where a lot of human trafficking takes place.

Because there is also evidence that Ger took drugs before she went missing, Julia feels that the police think that the girl’s disappearance is basically her own fault. But did she die or was she abducted? 

Through a network of mothers in similar circumstances Julia connects with journalist Abril (Teresa Ruiz, also very good). In Abril she finds a partner to add fuel to her own fire, that her husband, a nice enough man, can’t give her.

In a way, Abril helps make her search somewhat less lonely. Perhaps together they can make some noise to raise attention.

The slow burning yet completely gripping Ruido is directed by Natalia Beristain, from a script written by Beristain with Diego Enrique Osorno and Alo Venezuela. 

To say it's a crime story or a thriller doesn’t really do it justice, even though it has elements of both. In the end the movie is not just about girls who are abducted or go missing, but also about the larger issue of femicide. A subject that Beristain also explored in her documentary Nosostras (2019).

As a female lawyer tells Julia and Abril: ‘The police aren’t interested in finding lost girls, they are only interested in finding mass graves.’

And so Julia and Abril travel on, into the heart of darkness, meeting other mothers and hearing other stories along the way. It’s the not knowing that is the worst.

Ruido is not just about important issues, it’s also really well written, well acted and well made. 

It is a horror story, but most of all it is a love story.