Netflix’s latest Spanish-language mini-series, “I’m Not Afraid,” is a harrowing tale about the cruelties of poverty and the loss of childhood innocence. The first television adaptation of Niccolò Ammaniti’s 2003 novel “I’m Not Scared” is told from the perspective of a 10-year-old Miguel (Aldo Emiliano Navarro). The series depicts the anguish of an interrupted boyhood and the awakening of a child’s conscience as their safest spaces erode.
“I Am Not Afraid” opens in a small rural village in Mexico in 1986. Miguel and his younger sister María (Regina Arroyo) spend their days playing soccer with their cousin Chuy (Bruno Strauss) and other neighborhood children. Money is tight, especially since a plague has devastated the coffee harvest and destroyed the livelihoods of Miguel’s parents, Pino (Luis Alberti) and Teresa (Fátima Molina). Yet, Miguel is still joyous and carefree. The young boy’s biggest concern is staying out of the crosshairs of Calavera (Mauro Guzmán), the neighborhood bully who seems destined to follow the same path as his intimidating older brother, Felix (Cosmo Gonzalez).
It’s through Felix that the children hear the story of the evil witch who lives in the forest, murdering and eating little kids. Miguel is initially apprehensive about Felix’s witch fable, but as odd things begin to happen in his community, he begins to understand something sinister is indeed amiss. First, Miguel is puzzled when Chuy and his parents, Rosalío (Fernando Cuautl) and Margarita (Leidi Gutiérrez), abruptly leave town without warning. Yet things truly take a turn one day after Miguel stumbles upon a boy, Felipe (Yago Andreu), chained beneath the old water tank near the witch’s old, run-down house.
