Put Yourself in Somebody Else's Shoes

Throughout Portillo's documentary regarding the murders of women in Juarez, there is constant symbolism containing white crosses marking gravesites, pink crosses marking telephone poles, an empty ditch in the desert, and an empty pair of shoes among other symbols. The shoes may symbolize a variety of different things. If they are empty, possibly it is to symbolize how these shoes belonged to somebody at one point, but they are now gone. There is nobody left to fill these shoes. Maybe Portillo is suggesting that the audience should try to put themselves in one of these women's shoes trying to imagine what they went through or possibly the pain that the family endures. The shoes are empty just like the answers to solve this mystery. The visual I presented was found on the website: www.pbs.org/pov/pov2002/senoritaextraviada/update.html
This graphic picture suggests a contrast to the empty shoes in Portillo's documentary. This picture depicts the torture that theses children and women have gone through extensively with no justice or closure given to their families. The empty shoes hanging from a rear view mirror, possibly from a car or bus could suggest that the killers could be anyone. Or perhaps the family will never forget. Whatever the symbol suggests, it is one of emptiness and Portillo has hit this on the head with these images.