Directed and written by Alejandro Rojas and Juan Sebastián Vásquez, this is the story of Diego (Alberto Ammann) and Elena (Bruna Cusí) as they attempt to enter the United States. Their trip stops in New York City, where they had hoped to see Diego’s brother before moving to Miami. But as they are lost inside customs, they may never go anywhere.

The frightening thing about Upon Entry is how realistic it is while how much it also feels like something out of Kafka. They get no answers, no food, no water and instead question after question about everything in their lives, which slowly become more intrusive and therefore painful to attempt to answer.

We learn nothing of the situation and these characters other than from the answers that Diego and Elena give to the man and woman (Ben Temple and Laura Gómez) interrogating them. As we wish to learn who they are and why they are being kept, we become complicit in the way they are mistreated.

There are moments throughout this film that disarmed me and then would worry me, as I was caught up in the same questioning techniques, feeling trapped in the same small room as this film’s heroes. Is this what it’s like to come to the land of opportunity? And yet some will see them and their foreign origins as reasons to see them as less than human beings. This movie frightens me the more I consider it.

What an incredible work. This needs to be seen.

You can watch this on Tubi.