I had to watch this film for my Latin American film class the other day. At first, I thought it had the appearance of a well budgeted, well filmed movie with a lot of potential. Although it was obvious mostly bad things were to come, I was excited to see what was going to happen next. The three stories slowly built themselves up, peaked my interest and then the movie took a turn for the worse.
The climax seemed clumsy, too many parts falling together too quickly, too loosely. Rape scenes typically turn my stomach and this one wasn't the worst I've ever seen, but it appeared unnecessarily long and graphic. I thought it would have been more interesting to explore WHY Eliseo was so affected by the War. Instead, the movie HINTED at that and was inartistically blatant with everything else.
Finding out that this movie was based on a true story was one of the only redeeming qualities about it, for me of course. It is always interesting for a film, especially Latin American, to question the sanctity of the church, but to find out the side stories and their gratuitous violence were absent of the real life story made them lose whatever hint of substance they had.
I also think it's a weak effort to have 3 stories barely intertwined come together at the end with a quick murder scene.
If you haven't seen it, go ahead, it's a good effort but falls short.
The climax seemed clumsy, too many parts falling together too quickly, too loosely. Rape scenes typically turn my stomach and this one wasn't the worst I've ever seen, but it appeared unnecessarily long and graphic. I thought it would have been more interesting to explore WHY Eliseo was so affected by the War. Instead, the movie HINTED at that and was inartistically blatant with everything else.
Finding out that this movie was based on a true story was one of the only redeeming qualities about it, for me of course. It is always interesting for a film, especially Latin American, to question the sanctity of the church, but to find out the side stories and their gratuitous violence were absent of the real life story made them lose whatever hint of substance they had.
I also think it's a weak effort to have 3 stories barely intertwined come together at the end with a quick murder scene.
If you haven't seen it, go ahead, it's a good effort but falls short.