Diego Luna’s 'Ashes': A Quiet, Powerful Character Study Premiering at Cannes

It has been a decade since Diego Luna last directed a film. During that time, the Mexican actor starred in acclaimed projects like Andor and Narcos: Mexico. But his return to directing with Ashes—which premiered on Wednesday at the Cannes Film Festival—is not a flashy comeback. Instead, it is a quiet, unsettling character study that derives its power from understatement, silence, and darkness.

Luna did not set out to make a spectacle. His goal was to craft a film that examines compassion and empathy. With the support of a talented cast including Adriana Paz and Anna Diaz, he presents a small, unadorned story that lets its themes resonate in a fractured, hardhearted world.

Ashes (also known as Ceniza en la boca or A Mouthful of Ash) opens in a dimly lit bedroom in Mexico. A young mother, Isabel (played by Paz), wakes her 14-year-old daughter, Lucila, and says,

‘I have to leave. Take good care of your brother, will you?’

Through the bedroom window, Lucila watches her mother enter a cab and drive away—leaving her children behind for what later proves to be eight years. The film, based on Brenda Navarro’s 2022 novel, does not specify why Isabel departs for Spain. Instead, it focuses on the immigrant experience: the dashed promises of opportunity and the ripple effects on those left behind.

Years later, Lucy and her brother Diego reunite with their mother in Madrid. The film shifts forward in time, showing Lucy working as a nanny for a demanding employer. When her brother is expelled from school for hurting other children, she is left overwhelmed. Luna’s approach is stark and restrained. He immerses the viewer in Lucy’s life, leaving empathy as the only viable response.

Like her mother before her, Lucy left Mexico in search of a better life. Yet as she walks past a crane lifting a couch into an upstairs apartment, it becomes clear that this world remains out of reach. Luna moves between vignettes—first in Madrid, then later in Barcelona—offering little hope that Lucy’s cycle of drudgery will break. Though she occasionally sneaks out at night to dance with her boyfriend, the arrival of a troubled Diego at her door in Barcelona suggests their reunion will not end happily.

Luna’s framing often isolates characters through windows or distances them from the viewer. His pacing is slow and deliberate. The score is sparse, but the sound design is immersive: when Lucy receives devastating news about Diego, her screams blend into the cacophony of the city.