Tigers Are Not Afraid BEST

Any film that manages to make me gasp in shock and horror a couple of times deserves my praise. Tigers are not afraid is dark and unsettling and shook me on occasion. But there is an unevenness to it that makes this film flirt with greatness but not quite reaching it.

Tigers Are Not Afraid

It does not escape me that, as I praise a movie about tigers, children, and their struggle to escape the various confining, bleak circumstances, I live in a country that cages children. Mexican children. In a time where the powers that be scream and spit and tweet to distract, Tigers asks that we observe and cherish the humanity, the complexity, and the reality of children.

Beautifully paced across eighty-six lean minutes, Tigers focuses on what matters to López, what should matter to us. The children fight, they friendship, they plot, and they play. Like the ghosts, like the tigers, like the caged children this country would like us to ignore, that this country wishes we would just forget about in the midst of a country gone crazy, they are real.

She is telling this story to beat back the silence and indifference that would swallow stories like hers. To watch Tigers Are Not Afraid is to understand that you have a responsibility to these fairy tales and wishes and children. We must see their humanity. We must champion their stories. We must make them come true. It will not be easy. It will be scary at times. But we are not powerless in the face of this apathy. We are princes. We are tigers. And Tigers are not afraid. 041b061a72