Our take
It’s terrifying to imagine how someone innocent can unknowingly get linked to a crime. It’s a fear that drives many crime films including Paraguayan thriller 7 Boxes. While the basic idea is familiar, the film takes this trip to an unfamiliar location and executes it in a slick, stylish way, with respect to the hustle and bustle of the capital’s street market. Alongside the spectacular chase sequences, the film also allows each character to breathe, grounding the action with the sincere understanding of Victor’s hope for a better life. Some moments may seem a bit cliché, but 7 Boxes overall is a fast-paced and engaging movie that’s sure to delight thriller fans.
Streaming arrival
What it won
Goya Awards
1 nom
The story
It’s Friday night in Asunción and the temperature is 40ºC. Víctor, a 17-year-old wheelbarrow-boy, dreams of becoming famous and covets a cell phone in Mercado 4. He is offered the chance to deliver seven boxes with unknown contents in exchange for $100. This sounds like an easy job but it soon gets complicated. Something in the boxes is highly coveted. Víctor and his persecutors find themselves caught up in a crime they know nothing about.
Elsewhere
"Paraguayan action-thriller-romance hybrid 7 Boxes is a rollicking good time at the movies that offers breathtaking action and suspense, humor and appealing characters all in one visually flashy package."
— Boyd van Hoeij
""7 Boxes" is both a tense and frightening crime film as well as a sometimes-dreamy evocation of life in the sprawling underclass, its hallucinatory aspects, its chaos and violence, its fantasies."
— Sheila O'Malley
Asunción, Paraguay, April 2005. To earn money for the family, 17-year-old Victor works as one of many pushcart porters in the street market. One day, he receives a proposal to carry seven boxes to the other side of the market for a hundred dollars, which goes wrong when one of them goes missing.
The setting. It’s not just that it’s filmed in Paraguay, it’s also that it’s filmed entirely in the street market, not just passing by it.
What a great introduction to Paraguayan cinema.
Who picked it
Isabella Endrinal is a curator at A Good Movie to Watch. She's now free from the corporate night shift. Previous articles have been published in outlets such as NANG Magazine. She's currently catching up on some classic films… if she isn't coping with the fact that the Haikyu anime will end soon.
