The Arriagas’ ‘A Cielo Abierto’ Lights Up Venice Orizzonti
variety.comAnna Marie de la Fuente In the debut feature of Mexican filmmaker-siblings Mariana and Santiago Arriaga, revenge is indeed a dish best served cold.
Competing at the Venice Film Festival’s Orizzonti sidebar, the coming-of-age road movie “A Cielo Abierto” turns on two teen brothers who are bent on avenging the death of their father in a road accident.
They are joined by their new stepsister who, unaware of their intentions at first, later becomes a willing accomplice. As they pause and deliberate on what to do with their prey, what follows helps the brothers come to terms with the deep pain of their loss.
Based on the first original screenplay by their Oscar-nominated father, Guillermo Arriaga (“Amores Perros,” “Babel,” “21 Grams”), “A Cielo Abierto” (“Upon Open Sky”) takes place in the arid region of Northern Mexico, specifically in the Coahuila desert, where, as children, the siblings would go on many hunting trips with their father. “Much more than the films we’ve seen, these trips we took with our father, the people we met and places we discovered, are what have influenced our work,” the siblings note.
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