«En el camino» Venice Review: Tenderness in the Shadow of Violence

The world of Mexico’s highways and long-haul truckers can be dense, harsh, and dangerous. In his new film, the director of La vida después portrays it exactly that way—but with a twist. Unlike other Mexican films that plunge into similar violent, unforgiving settings, On the Road (En el camino) does so with a slightly more melancholy touch, threading in something that feels like a love story. Not one strong enough to fend off the inevitable arrival of blood and death, but one that at least provides a fragile anchor to a narrative that could otherwise have been little more than gratuitous cruelty.

Veneno, a young man on the run from a violent past we glimpse only through fleeting, fragmentary flashbacks, drifts along the highways, using his body at times to get what he wants—or simply because he feels like it. He’s drawn to risky situations, aware of the danger and not entirely unwilling to court it. In a roadside bar, he meets Muñeco, a stoic, tight-lipped truck driver. Veneno offers him a deal: if Muñeco gives him a lift, he’ll share some of the cocaine packets he’s carrying.

Muñeco accepts, and the two set off together. Soon, the trucker realizes his companion is gay. Tentatively, cautiously, they cross boundaries—occasional sexual encounters, moments of intimacy carved out of long stretches of silence. Yet Muñeco, who insists he isn’t gay and claims to miss his children, wants a bigger cut of Veneno’s business, aware that accompanying him in drug sales puts him on a collision course with the local cartel. For a while, the pair fall into a rhythm: oral sex, confidences swapped, small-time deals along the route. But one slip, one mistake, one misread situation—and the fragile equilibrium collapses, violently.

As its title suggests, On the Road echoes Kerouac, though what Pablos delivers is a dusty Mexican road movie populated by weathered truckers who know every curve, pothole, dive bar, and brothel on their routes. Within this routine, Veneno and Muñeco carve out a temporary space of survival, maybe even something resembling tenderness. But such balance can’t hold. Sooner or later, homophobia erupts, and danger returns with brutal force.

Pablos roots his film in the dynamic between the two men, allowing the provocative subject matter and inevitable violence to emerge not as empty shocks, but as the outgrowth of their relationship. There’s a story of loneliness and fleeting intimacy beneath the grime, one that reins in the excesses that often plague this kind of hyper-masculine, narco-borderland cinema. The violence, when it comes, is brief but searing; the tenderness, though fragile, is what lingers.

With strong performances—many from nonprofessional actors—immersive atmosphere, and erotic scenes that don’t shy away from frankness, En el camino manages to go beyond simply cataloging a brutal world. Veneno and Muñeco embody, however briefly, the possibility of a deeper connection in a place defined by roughness, danger, and survival. It won’t last, but the glimmer is there: a fleeting light flickering amid so much darkness.