For a German in Mexico, I had to see that movie everybody was talking about: Guten Tag, Ramon.

Hence I took Renato to the cinema on wednesday night.

Of course, I had forgotten that much of the movie would be in Spanish, and that, unlike in Brussels, there would be no subtitles for that part.

But even if I sometimes did not understand much of it, one always manages to get the gist, from the pictures, gestures and faces, the melody and the mood. Communication, to me, seems to be as much verbal as non-verbal.

The movie plays half in Mexico and had in Germany, and tells the story of the young Ramon who, after a couple of failed attempts to get to the US, tries his luck in Germany.

Arriving in bitter cold winter, a few bad turns let him end stranded on the streets, but soon, his luck turns again when an older lady takes note of him and starts to help him.

It’s a beautiful story about friendship, about home, about loneliness, about solidarity, about being lost and about finding something you might not even have noticed you lacked. I laughed a lot, and nearly cried a bit here and there.

It’s a movie, and of course the story has a few turns that, unfortunately to many, only happen in the movies.

But it makes you think: how often does the story not end good? How often does someones journey and search for happiness and a better life turn bad, or ends somewhere, in the cold streets of Germany, in a sinking boat in the mediterranean, or some place else….

After ten days in Mexico, basically being in the richest and most developed parts, I still could not help but notice the number of children selling chewing gum in the streets, young people cleaning windscreens at the traffic lights, or women with babies asking for money.

How often does pure luck decide how the dices fall, for or against you, starting with your first day: the country, group, family, color you are born into.