Part of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s mission is to foster greater understanding through world cinema. This year 72 Foreign Language films were submitted for Golden Globes consideration. Here is an overview of one of them.

This film from Mexico is another take on that country’s never ending drug war, and the complementary and co-dependent American war on drugs. 600 Miles is much less epic than this season’s American “drug war” film Sicario but gives another interesting point of view.

Even if one of two main characters is an American, a big portion of the dialog is in English, and part of the action takes place in the U.S., the perspective in the film is predominantly from the Mexican side of the border.

Arnulfo Rubio (Kristyan Ferrer) smuggles weapons for a deadly Mexican cartel. ATF agent Hank Harris (Tim Roth) attempts to apprehend him on an impulse, without any backup, but instead gets kidnapped by Rubio. Rubio decides to take Hank to his drug cartel bosses, but during the 600-miles long drive into Mexico, they slowly befriend each other with unexpected results for both of them.

For his directorial debut, Gabriel Ripstein, the son of the celebrated Mexican director Arturo Ripstein chose a less experimental path than what is a trademark of his famous father.

The screenplay by Gabriel Ripstein and Issa Lopez, as well as the film itself, after playing with some tried and true genres, slowly but surely takes the form of the typical road movie.

The interesting twist here however is that the stronger character is taken hostage by the weaker one. This gives way to quite a few original resolutions of the very tense situations in the movie.

The film is shot by a cinematographer Alain Morcoen, almost entirely with a hand held camera, which gives the picture much needed intimacy. Especially since a big part of the film takes place in the limited space of the van in which Arnulfo drives Hank to his bosses through the territory of a rival gang. This gives additional tension to the action because both of the characters face an equal danger of being killed.

The film was produced by Michael Franco, Andrea Gamboa and Gabriel Ripstein and went on to become a winner for a Best First Feature Film at the Berlin International Film Festival as well as a winner for a Best Mexican Film at the Guadalajara Mexican Film Festival.

Serge Rakhlin