All of Me - inspirational documentary about people giving all they have for those with nothing

All of Me is a truly inspiring documentary about some of the most awe-inspiring women imaginable.

La Patrona is poor rural town in Mexico, and its people mostly work in poorly paid factory jobs or cane farming, hoping that their kids can have a better life.  Some of the women have survived domestic abuse or other personal traumas. But instead of feeling down about this, they have channelled all their energy into helping people with even less than them - those clinging to the trains up through Central America to the US-Mexican border in the hope of getting out of poverty. Many of the people of La Patrona think of joining them, but for now their focus is on providing what help they can to the people on the trains.

The women and men of La Patrona therefore fill discarded bottles and cook donated and left over food to hand out to the people of the train, so at least they have something on their journey.  They raise money for their cause by selling bottles of chilli paste, even though that money could have gone to improving their own lives. They gather donated clothes and give lifts to the next junction to anyone who falls off. Two of the most remarkable scenes and stories are completely contrasting, and both demonstrated the all round kindness of these women.

Firstly, there is a memorable scene shot in night vision where we overhear the phone call of a young Honduran woman. All that has happened is that they have lent her a mobile phone, but this is clearly the first time the woman has spoken to her mother in days or weeks, and she is crying with joy as she is able to speak to her and arrange to meet other relatives and friends who are separately making the same journey.

Secondly is the tale of one of the people who fell off. There are two stories of particularly horrific injuries, and in both cases, the women stayed with these young men in hospital, looked after them, kept their families updated and became a surrogate family.  Most memorably, one of the women, who had struggled through the poverty of her early life, tells of how she was depressed after having cancer. She was asked to go to hospital and support the young man who had lost both of his legs after falling trying to get back on the train. She is so upset for him, but he tells her how he is not going let this get him down and that he is grateful to be alive. She talks of how it inspired her to put her own problems into perspective and pull through her depression and get back involved in her family and the work of La Patrona.  Well that certainly put my problems in perspective!

As a film, the documentary itself was clearly made on a low-budget and is not the most cinematic.  However, it does a fantastic job of letting the individual characters of these remarkable women shine through. They are not just brilliant and awe-inspiring, they are funny and smart and strong-minded and have amazing depths of kindness and compassion. The scenes where the trains pass by, often at some speed, with hands hanging out snatching at food parcels are smartly shot and edited to make these scenes horrifically tense.

And when you have this kind of amazing story, what isn't necessarily needed is fantastic cinematography or well-crafted sound, but the ability to portray the humanity of remarkable individuals and connect the audience to the story as deeply as possible. On both of these things, All of Me completely delivers.