Abhiroop Das
With Ernesto Contreras, Alba Gil, and Alejandro Zuno at the helm, Netflix’s ‘I’m Not Afraid,’ or ‘No Tengo Miedo,’ is a reimagination of the classic Italian novel ‘I’m Not Scared’ by Niccolò Ammaniti. While the Spanish-language series shifts the setting from Italy to Mexico and the timeline from the 1970s to the 1980s, the driving force of the narrative remains the disappearance of a child. When 10-year-old Miguel finds a young boy named Felipe held captive in an underground well, he is met with a difficult decision: whether to alert the adults and potentially invite the kidnapper’s wrath, or find a way to help Felipe by himself before it’s too late. In the meantime, however, Miguel befriends Felipe and learns of the mysterious, masked person who has him held up here. While we eventually learn that there is an active search for Felipe going on, the motive behind this kidnapping doesn’t make sense until much later, when all the cards are revealed. SPOILERS AHEAD.
Felipe is Kidnapped by the Parents of Miguel, Chava, and the Others
Around its halfway point, ‘I’m Not Afraid’ reveals that Felipe’s kidnappers are none other than the parents of Miguel and his friends. Though we are initially led to believe that a single person, Felix, is behind the entire plan, in reality, this turns out to be a conspiracy involving many families, all of whom are interested in the same goal. To understand how things got so far, it is important to dial back to five years ago, when the village was at the peak of its prosperity. Chava’s father, Rodrigo, ran a profitable coffee farm that employed almost half of the village, including Felix, Miguel’s father, Pino, and uncle Rosalio, and many others. However, the arrival of a plant epidemic decimated the farm over the course of a single season, and the village was never the same.
In the present, five years after the epidemic, we learn that the villagers are still struggling in one way or another. While Pino is forced to pick up odd jobs far away from the town, Chava contemplates whether the farm has any future left at all. For Felix and his brother, Calavera, things are even more troublesome, considering their father’s alcohol addiction. It is at the intersection of these storylines that the kidnapping plot comes to be. While working for a big industrialist, Pino discovers that the man’s son, Felipe, is extremely trusting of strangers, almost to a fault. This particularly comes to light when Felipe unassumingly climbs into Pino’s car to surprise him, not knowing that this could get the man fired. From this one incident, however, Pino’s brother and sister-in-law get the idea to kidnap the kid and ask for a huge ransom.
The Adults Alienate Felipe in a Desperate Attempt to Hide From Their Own Actions
From the moment the idea spreads and becomes a concrete plan, a similar chain of events follows. Pino, Chava, and then Felix, Teresa, and Lupe, all meet the idea with an instinctive shock, horror, and rejection, before the appeal of becoming rich overnight draws them all in. The hidden component in all of this, however, is their malice, which cannot easily be excused by poverty. In their desperation for a better life, both for themselves and their children, the adults of this story do not hesitate to abuse another child. To make things even worse, most of them refuse to even actively participate in the kidnapping, as by maintaining a distance, they can allow themselves to feel less guilty. In the end, all of the responsibility is put on Felix’s shoulders, and no one even checks as he abuses Felipe every day.
For Teresa and many others, the true horrors of what they have done only settle in when Felipe’s mother comes on television, pleading for her son to be returned home safely. Seeing another mother in anguish, Teresa cannot help but think back to her own Miguel, and thus, a crack begins to form in the adults’ coalition, where their individual self-interests begin to overpower their shared desire to grow wealthy. In a way, it is only an extension of how their selfishness has a destructive effect on others, as even here, Rodrigo and the others decide to pin the entire blame on Felix, the youngest of the crew. Not long after, Rodrigo even determines to kill Felipe in a desperate attempt to erase evidence, but ends up shooting Miguel instead. If anything, this entire saga illustrates how vicious the cycle can be, and how it’s ultimately the children who bear the brunt of it the most.
Read More: I’m Not Afraid Ending Explained: Is Miguel Dead or Alive? Is Felipe Rescued?
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