Benjamin’s situation is simplest: his father is mortally ill, so he’s reluctant to execute the theft and take off as Juan proposes. Juan, meanwhile, has a large family that gathers for Christmas in a way that seems to promise spats and insults, even as he for the first time must endure the chagrin of dressing up as Santa Claus. His dour father (Alfredo Castro) appears perpetually disappointed in him, and to make matters worse, Juan can’t pull off the heist without borrowing dad’s car.
When, in the dark of night, Juan and Benjamin enter the spectacular Museum of Anthropology, with its masses of pre-Columbian treasures, they are able to elude guards and remove scores of art works, including an especially valuable jade mask. But as soon as they’ve gotten away with their loot, they begin to get a glimmer of something they hadn’t contemplated before: its meaning to Mexicans. As the television news relays the public outcry over the thefts, Juan’s dad angrily brands the thieves cowards and traitors who should be hung in the public square.
There’s a sense in all of this that Ruizpalacios is probing Mexican identity and its connection to the civilizations that existed in Mexico prior to the Spanish invasion. The theme continues when Juan and Benjamin hit the road with their loot and end up in Chiapas, where they seek out a friend who’s giving lectures in English to tourists at the Palenque ruins. Inside a Mayan temple, Juan half-jokingly discusses with the guide the theory that the underground sculptures here depict a Mayan king about to take off in a spaceship. Here, as in subsequent mentions of American mystical author Carlos Castaneda, present-day imagination and pop culture intertwine with the relics of an alluring, inscrutable past.
Our two thieves have come to their pal hoping he can help them sell their treasures. But what results is a trip to Acapulco where they dress up in suits and go to the swank home of a British art collector (a superb turn by Simon Russell Beale), who doesn’t take them seriously for a second. How, he asks, do they think they could possibly sell these artifacts? It’s inconceivable. They’re world famous and now the whole world knows they’ve been stolen. No one, not even the sleaziest dealer, would risk taking them.
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