Synopsis
"The Dream" opens with a dirt-poor day laborer, Hilario, sneaking into the bedroom to murder his former employer, the opulent Alfredo, but bungling his attempt embarrassingly. In "The Nightmare," set three years later, the tables are turned when Hilario gets a second chance to kill Alfredo as part of a Mexican Revolution death squad that pays Alfredo a visit. After 1928's "About to Sleep", a chronicle of Mexico's Chinese immigrant programs (and their lawful prosecution), in the 1946-set "Eroticism," Angela, Alfredo's young wife in "The Dream," returns from Paris to sell the house. As she re enters the room, she experiences her own sensual awakening in the arms of a Mexican Colonel. The characters' destinies play out against a larger canvas: "Loneliness" takes place in 1968, during the opening of the polemic Olympic Games. "Night Watch" begins on the eve of Mexico's 1985 massive Earthquake; in "Death," set in the 1990s, rival gangs -who will be played by real street children- fight for the house, now in ruins. The last episode, "Evocation," features real testimonies from massacre survivors and is set in present day Mexico. During its restoration, THE ROOM reemerges as a haven for victims of drug violence that returns hope to its inhabitants.