This week Murray State University Cinema International is partnering with the school’s Department of History to present “We Shall Not Be Moved,” a dark, comedic revenge thriller about a woman’s quest to find her brother’s killer decades after the1968 protests in Mexico that led to the government firing upon its citizens. .
A 2024 debut by Mexican director Pierre Saint-Martin, the film tells the story of Socorro, a grieving lawyer whose brother was killed in the protests by government forces, connecting past and present as she seeks answers about this death. Based around true events, the film is centered around the student protests against police brutality and the authoritarian Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) Party, during the country’s hosting of the 1968 Summer Olympics.
MSU Cinema International co-director Tamara Feinstein said that the film combines elements of both dramatic thriller and dark comedies.
“It's really interesting… from a historical perspective because it looks at the impact of a really important massacre that took place in 1968, where a lot of students who were part of the student movement in Mexico were protesting police brutality, the long-standing authoritarian nature of the PRI, which was the party of the institutionalized revolution in Mexico,” she said. “It was all taking place around the time of the Olympics. So there were a lot of eyes on Mexico in 1968.”
Feinstein said the Mexican government sought to quell the student protestors ahead of the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City and called out the military to suppress the crowd.
“It was embarrassing for them to have all of these young students protesting the government then. And so the setup of this movie is taking place in the present day, and there's this very cantankerous, big personality lawyer, who's in her 60s, named Socorro. She was very impacted by this massacre because her brother Coque is one of the victims,” she said. “And she's been trying to find out who actually killed him. And obviously, she knows that it's one of the government forces, but which soldiers who's looking for revenge.”
At the screenings of “We Shall Not Be Moved,” Feinstein’s History at the Movies course will be presenting information about the film to provide some context for viewers who may not be so familiar with Mexico’s history.
MSU student Mike Davis said that they were moved by the film and thought the black and white imagery felt more than just an artistic choice.
“The first notes I took when watching this movie was particularly about the fact that it was entirely in black and white. Usually, I kind of find that just to be sort of a cheap, artistic move. But in this movie, it felt kind of intentional,” they said. “Because we're watching it from Socorro’s perspective, it kind of felt like a representation of her grief, like she is living in this world of complete darkness – almost because she cannot move on from the loss of her brother. It is the thing that dictates her entire life, and I think we see that pretty much throughout the movie.”
Student Rae Hobbs said she liked how the film handled Socorro’s grief.
“I feel like the movie as a whole is a really good representation of when you deal with something so intensely grief-driven, and having to move on and go on with your life after something so horrible happens, and how that impacts everything you do,” she said. “And I really liked how it handled her grief, and how it represented how it has driven her as a person.”
While the film deals with darker, heavier plotlines, the film is also a dark comedy. Both Davis and Hobbs felt that the abruptness and plotting of the characters helped lighten the mood of the film.
“I think the way that she interacts with the other characters is where the humor really comes through because she's so blunt and she's so direct,” said Davis. “You are introduced to [her] as this character is grieving, and you kind of expect them to be like very gloomy, very ‘woe is me.’. She is not like that. She will tell you literally exactly how she feels straight to your face, and it's kind of amusing to watch.”
Davis also hoped that viewers would consider the individual perspectives of people affected by the events in the film rather than the collective group.
“I think I want people to come away with not only recognizing that the historical context of the movie can still be applied today –not just in America but all across the world – but also how those events impact each individual person who is a part of them because when we think about these events, we think of them in very broad terms. We're like, ‘this happened. This was what happened,’” said Davis. “We don't really think about the individual person behind them. We sort of think of them as a collective. I think this movie invites us to think about them as individuals and how they specifically, through Socorro, are impacted by these events that we think of so broadly.”
MSU Cinema International is screening “We Shall Not Be Moved,” on Thursday and Saturday at 7 p.m. in Faculty Hall room 208 on the main campus of Murray State University.
