Don Reynaldo (Gerardo Trejoluna) is the patriarch of a large landowning family in the north of Mexico, right next to the border with Texas. People like him, if I’m not mistaken, are called rancheros in Mexico, and this man was in his sixties and once a famous hunter. He and his brother inherited this huge expanse from their father, and he plans to pass the Reynaldo Ranch on to his children, his son and two daughters, who not only no longer live there, but also do not seem to have any ambitions to do the business. And in the first third, “Northern Skies Over Empty Skies” acts as another in a series of Mexican dramas about class relations, because in addition to Reynaldo’s family members, all his employees and friends will gather at the ranch’s 20th anniversary celebration.
The author Alejandra Marquez Abella dealt with these class and social relations in Mexico in the previous film, however much better “Las ninas bien”, and before we can notice, “El norte sobre el vacio” will almost turn into a modern western. Because besides the fact that Reynaldo’s ranch is threatened with ruin since none of his heirs are interested in living in the country and raising cattle, there will be some guys who are very interested in the ranch. At least so much that they pay them a protection racket even though Reynaldo never needed protection. So even though everyone suggests to him not to enter into a conflict with these obviously dangerous guys who can be guessed to be members of some infamous cartel and all the neighboring ranches pay them a racket, Reynaldo is clearly old school and a guy who doesn’t let anyone mess with him.
This traditional patriarch does not want to hear about compromises and will stubbornly refuse dialogue with criminals even though he is aware that it could be badly spent. And the film has a kind of strange atmosphere, especially in the beginning, when we slowly understand the dynamics of relationships in this family and realize that this is another example of a way of life in exhalation. Don Reynaldo is clearly an endangered species that grew up in some past times, almost on the verge of extinction and on the verge of extinction that modernity has overtaken, and the new circumstances of the general criminalization of Mexico threaten to eliminate him physically. When “Northern Skies” almost completely turns into a classic western about intruders who would grab someone’s territory, both visually and stylistically, this unusual but authentic drama will turn into a movie almost on the trail of spaghetti western.