As a Colombian I was looking forward to see this film. I've heard some good comments about it, how well it's been doing in festivals, and it's also been a while since I've seen a Colombian film.
The film was a very nice surprise. It's a road film about a couple of cousins who are going to reclaim the land, that was once stolen from their family by the guerrilla. A road film in such a beautiful country as Colombia, gives us very strong and outstanding images. It's not surprising that its director has a background as a cinematographer, because you can feel the intention of showing how amazing and rich the Colombian landscape is.
The story is heart breaking, it's about terror, about how the young survivors of violence grow up, coping with their memories, and how they're traumatized. What makes this film interesting is that it doesn't fall into the cliché of using this sadness and horror to win the audience. It tells its story in a very Colombian way, with humor. It creates a contrast between the two cousins. On one hand we have Marina, who barely talks and still thinks that the world is after her. And on the other hand, we have Jairo who's the opposite, a guy that tries to get all the bad things in his life and turn them into good opportunities to enjoy life.
I found the narration of the film to be an accurate portrait of the Colombian culture, how we always look forward to the tomorrow because everything will be better then. And how we find humor in the bad things that happen, because that way they're easier to handle and life is nicer to live. I think the film succeeds in this choice of telling the story. I could hear the audience laughing at situations that from other point of views could have been tragic. Of course there is a very strong message about the situation in Colombia, and the filmmaker makes us aware of it. When the time comes for the cousins to face what they were looking for, the humor goes away and we are presented with the raw truth of pain and violence, that is the base of the story.
To me it was very eye-opening. In a country like Colombia were there are so many different victims and problems, sometimes we forget about some of them, and this film is a good reminder of one of those, and it's also a very good film that portrays our culture, and in a way shows how the years of violence have shaped it
Nini er distribusjonsansvarlig i Montages Shorts, et initativ etablert for å bistå filmskapere og produsenter i distribusjon av nordiske kortfilmer til festivaler og tv-stasjoner verden over.
Bloggenes innhold representerer skribentenes egne meninger, og ikke Film fra Sør Festivalen.
