''Daniel & Ana'' is a 2009 Mexican thriller

drama Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has been ...

film directed by

Michel Franco Michel Franco (born 28 August 1979) is a Mexican film director, screenwriter and producer. He is best known for his film '' After Lucia'' that won the Prize Un Certain Regard at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. His films typically deal with the ...

. It had its world premiere on May 18, 2009 at the

Cannes Film Festival The Cannes Festival (; french: link=no, Festival de Cannes), until 2003 called the International Film Festival (') and known in English as the Cannes Film Festival, is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films o ...

and stars Darío Yazbek Bernal and

Marimar Vega Marimar Vega (born María del Mar Vega Sisto on August 14, 1983) is a Mexican actress. Vega studied acting in Centro de Formacion Actoral of TV Azteca. Biography Vega was born August 14, 1983, in Mexico City, Distrito Federal, Mexico. She is ...

. The movie follows two siblings that are kidnapped and forced to have sex on camera, as well as the emotional trauma that follows afterwards.

Plot

Daniel and Ana live with their wealthy parents in Mexico City. He has a girlfriend, Mariana, while she is soon to be married to Rafa, who wants to take a job in Spain. The two are kidnapped at gunpoint and, under threat of being raped and killed, are filmed stripping and having sex. Though returned home unharmed, their lives are shattered: they cannot talk to each other or to anybody else. In time Ana proves more resilient, consulting a psychiatrist and reconciling with Rafa. But Daniel's emotional state remains in turmoil, because he was not wholly repulsed by sex with the attractive older sister he has always loved, even though theirs was a situation of coerced rape and not love. He buys a dagger to take to Ana's wedding, but is unsure who to kill. A message at the end of the film warns against pornography using coerced amateurs.

Cast

* Darío Yazbek Bernal as Daniel Torres *

as Ana Torres *

José María Torre José María Torre (born José María Torre Hütt on November 4, 1977, in San Salvador, El Salvador) is a Mexican Salvador-born actor and fashion designer known for his roles in telenovelas. He is the brother of Fátima Torre and Andrea Torre. H ...

as Rafa *Franco Abisua as Agrupación Cariño *Cecilia Franco Abruch as Amiga Boda *José de Jesús Aguilar as Sacerdote *

Gary Alazraki Gary "Gaz" Alazraki is the writer and director of Mexico's record breaking comedy ''Nosotros los Nobles'' (2013) and the co-creator, executive producer and director of '' Club de Cuervos'' (2015), Netflix's first original series in Spanish. He head ...

as Amigo Borracho *Mark Alazraki as Amigo Fiesta *Elías Alfille as Borracho 1 *Irma Berlanga as Recepcionista *José Luis Caballaro as Amigo Boda *Jéssica Castelán as Mariana *Gabriel de Cervantes as Secuestrador 3 *Cecilia Levy Franco as Amiga Boda *Sara Levy Franco as Niña Boda

Production

said that before going to talk with director

, "There were some nerves about the nudity that had to be done, but when I talked to him and he explained how he was going to work with me, how he was going to take it, they went away."

Reception

Critical reception for ''Daniel & Ana'' was mixed and the film holds a rating of 50% on

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

(based on 6 reviews) and 43 on

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

(based on 5 reviews). ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' gave a mixed review, stating that while the film's "stylistic restraint may help deflect accusations of exploitation", they also thought that the muted emotions in the film "impedes our connection with the victims". The ''

Village Voice ''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture paper, known for being the country's first alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Mailer, the ''Voice'' began as a platform for the creat ...

'' also gave a mixed review, saying that the film was effective until the final act which they felt "tips the film's delicate balance over into lurid grotesquerie, even as ranco'sstaging remains as consciously muted as ever."

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Daniel and Ana 2009 films 2009 thriller films 2009 drama films 2000s Spanish-language films Mexican independent films 2009 independent films Mexican thriller films Films about rape in Mexico Incest in film Films directed by Michel Franco 2009 directorial debut films 2000s Mexican films