El jardín del Edén

This is not a commercial Hollywood style film, and if you're looking for a lot of action, you won't get it here. El Jardín del Edén is a thoughtful, intriguing character study and gives us a glimpse of what life is like for different kinds of people who end up at the U.S./Mexican border in the mid-1990s. Migration is not a one way street, and just as there are Mexicans who want to go to "the other side," there are people from the U.S. who are drawn to Mexico and are searching for something there they can't find at home. Not all Mexicans living in Tijuana want to cross to the U.S. Not all Mexicans who cross want to stay in the U.S. This film breaks down a lot of stereotypes about what the border is, and it makes it clear that we can't put people into neat little categories. People are motivated to do things for a lot of different reasons, and sometimes cultural and personal differences are so subtle that people offend or hurt each other without even realizing it. I would recommend this film to anyone who has seen too many violent, action packed films about corruption, greed and crime along the border, because it shows that things are not always so dramatic and wild as we imagine. Here, the border has a definite and unique character of its own, but it's no better and no worse than any other place. Sometimes people find what they're looking for, sometimes not, but there is a certain degree of hope in the film that keeps the characters moving forward and imagining a better kind of life for themselves and others.