The Migration Genre in La jaula de oro: Voids and Virtues

Abstract:Between October 2013 and June 2014, some fifty-two thousand undocumented, unaccompanied Central American adolescents were detained at the US-Mexico border, a phenomenon indexed by the focus of La jaula de oro, a 2013 Mexican-Spanish coproduction. The film's title is important for its pre-viewing suggestivity. In terms of the filmic discourse vis-à-vis the overall migration phenomenon, the film contains "voids," but La jaula de oro's invocation of the migration genre through intermedial relationships with preexisting texts helps fill some gaps. Two apparent discursive "voids" are the lack of specificity of motivation or destination for four adolescents' traversal and the lack of dialogue. Among its compensating "virtues," the film focuses on human relationships and some of the difficulties faced by migrants, and the "bad" is nuanced in different agents of ill doing. Primary among the film's virtues is the privilege granted to the image. It is at these levels of intermediality and discourse focus on human relationships that the award-winning film is to be appreciated.