SOBA (Beaten) is a story of corruption and sexual violence that is at the same time an unconventional love story, set in Mexico City. Very dark in its subject matter, the story is told with broad strokes (more metaphorical and melodramatic than realistic) almost in the fashion of a graphic novel such as Frank Miller's Sin City, but much more discrete in its depiction of violence and not at all played for laughs or thrills. The story of innocence and corruption operates as a kind of metaphor for the interconnection between political, moral and sexual corruption on the one hand and poverty and economic depression on the other. Soba is a powerful re envisioning of the film noir genre - filmed in stunning black and white, with 15-year old Justine alternating between innocent victim and "femme fatale" and the sadistic but honest cop Ivan playing a role of ambiguous savior analogous to that of Robert De Niro's Travis Bickle to Jodie Foster in Taxi Driver
