The Freedom of Fierro
(Canada/Mexico/ Greece, 96 min.)
Dir. Santiago Esteinou
Programme: TIFF Docs (World premiere)
Can freedom be its own form of punishment? The story of César Fierro’s hard-fought journey to freedom enters a bittersweet act in The Freedom of Fierro, the followup to the 2014 doc The Years of Fierro. His story is one of holding strong in the face of the worst adversity. The prior documentary chronicles Fierro’s experience trying to clear his name after spending over 30 years in a maximum security prison for a crime he didn’t commit. Santiago Esteinou’s previous documentary is a crucial element in the story of Fierro’s release. This new doc continues the story as Fierro finally walks out of the Texas prison that housed him for decades and returns to Mexico a free man.
Fierro’s walk to freedom is as cruel as it is revitalizing. He reflects upon years spent in isolation and he now struggles with re-socialization. Interactions with other people are awkward and he finds that people always shrink back when they learn about his past. Moreover, a 40-year gap in his resume and life experience makes it difficult to get work. And, in an ironic twist, his freedom coincides with the lockdowns forced by the Delta variant era of the COVID-19 pandemic. One form of isolation replaces another.
The pandemic also facilitates an effective visual metaphor for Fierro’s loneliness. When he returns home and roams in fresh air, the streets are void of people. He’s alone literally and figuratively.
Fierro walks the streets and revisits the haunts of his past. His hometown bears signs of age and neglect, which further reflects how much the world has change while Fierro was locked away. The clearest signs of how much life passed him by, however, come in the updates he receives about family members, friends, neighbours, and acquaintances: pretty much everyone from his old life has either moved away or passed on.
As Fierro roams in search of human connection, one observation becomes distressing clear: Esteinou is his only friend. Fierro wrestles with alcohol to curb the loneliness, but Esteinou smartly steps away from his role as observer as his participant greedily comes to see his director as a placebo for a drinking buddy. Esteinou’s voice becomes more pronounced from behind the camera. He cares about Fierro, his antisocial behaviour, and his struggle to adapt. The director refreshingly rejects passive observation. He doesn’t interfere or manipulate his participant’s life choices, either. Rather, he asks productive questions that invite Fierro to reflect upon his struggles and self-destructive behaviour.
This delicately observant film observes firsthand the lingering consequences of the carceral system. It’s a portrait of how someone tries to rebuild in the aftermath of surviving a system that utterly failed him. Esteinou fashions a fine marriage between cinéma vérité and participatory filmmaking to ensure that Fierro doesn’t make the hard walk alone. The film illustrates how one can only be a fly on the wall for so long before buzzing in so that a friend feels less alone.
The Freedom of Fierro premiered at TIFF 2024.
Get more coverage from this year’s festival here.
