La Caja review – mystery box of bones ignites brooding surrogate-father tale

The final instalment in Venezuelan director Lorenzo Vigas's trilogy about fathers and sons takes on social issues as well as emotional ones

Teenage Hatzin is on his way home with his father's remains in a box when he looks out the window and sees a familiar face on the street. He jumps off the bus and the man turns around. If the box contains Esteban, then who's this guy, Mario? And if Mario is his father, then who the hell's in the box?

Rest assured that these questions will be addressed and responded to during the course of La Caja, the closing part of Venezuelan writer-director Lorenzo Vigas's acclaimed trilogy about the fraught, shifting relationship between fathers and sons. Vigas's last instalment, From Afar, took the top prize here in Venice back in 2015, although since then the jury has swung towards bigger and splashier fare. La Caja - a tale of physical and spiritual deserts - may be too modest and stolid to trouble the scoreboard this year. But it has important things to say and by and large says them well.