Satanas (Satan) begins with a women confessing in church, she is worried because she can't provide food for her children. The priest offers to get some food for them. When he returns with food they are all gone. The next time he sees her, she's in church at the foot of a statue of St. Michael and covered in blood. She tells him that she has freed her children.
Then we meet Eliseo a lonely penniless man who finds refuge in literature. He was a former soldier for the US, at times seems generous but perhaps his generosity is because he is just impatient with people. He's a hygiene-freak, constantly cleaning himself with hand sanitizer. He lives with his mom but their relationship is just about hurting each other verbally in every exchange they have. He plays chess regularly but doesn't want to talk to his partner. He spends a lot of time in libraries and gets along well with a librarian who calls him "doctor", who respects him and isn't nosy. He is also a private English tutor and tutors a beautiful well-to-do teen girl.
Our third main character is an attractive woman who sells coffee in a large central meat and produce market. She seems depressed, she's better than the people she has to deal with: butchers, produce sellers. One day she is approached by two sleazy guys with a business proposition. The deal is that she will go out to clubs, hook up with a guy, get him drugged so that her business partners can rob him. In exchange she gets a cut of the money and to live in a nice apartment. At first this makes her sick, but eventually she enjoys as she also becomes close to one of her partners.
For the most part all these stories are unconnected but all these characters undergo a deep transformation. The priest visits the infanticidal mother in jail, but she is drawn to evil- pasting her cell wall with newspaper articles of atrocities, she tries to seduce the priest, and reads biblical passages that makes reference to the devil.
The priest in turn is having an affair with the church maid and decides to leave the priesthood for her.
The attractive woman ends up one day raped by a taxi driver and his associate and she decides she wants ultimate revenge.
And Eliseo transformation is more of a slow descent into madness. He is anti-social and good-natured. But his good nature is tested again and again forcing him to leave it behind. He becomes much more confrontational and downright misanthropic. One day he locks himself up in his room to read Jeckyll and Hyde. When he comes out he is transformed. He doesn't put up with annoyances anymore. He takes his gun, some ammo, then withdraws all the money out from his bank. He pays a visit to everyone he knows. Then he walks into a restaurant. Other patrons include the former priest and his lover, the rape victim who know is a server at the restaurant.
At the end we find out that this movie is based on a novel about a real life massacre that took place years ago in Colombia.
This movie is quite good. All the stories are believable and well acted. The pace slows down quite a bit when it comes to Eliseo's story, but that is because he is seemingly such a measured and calculating man. But inside trouble was brewing. The portrayal of his madness is pretty good. He is an introvert. He doesn't scream and make scenes. He absorbs it all into himself until one day he can't take it anymore.
Overall, a very good and enjoyable movie. A success for Colombian film-making. I didn't know the background of it or where it would go so it was very interesting to see how it all turned out. The music is good, it keeps things tense. The cinematography is well done also. While it may seem the stories are disconnected, they are not insofar as all these people become someone they are not. It may seem that their coming together at the end is forced. At the same time, if you think about it and were to pick some people from a restaurant and follow their lives, you may find something akin to what this movie shows.
Then we meet Eliseo a lonely penniless man who finds refuge in literature. He was a former soldier for the US, at times seems generous but perhaps his generosity is because he is just impatient with people. He's a hygiene-freak, constantly cleaning himself with hand sanitizer. He lives with his mom but their relationship is just about hurting each other verbally in every exchange they have. He plays chess regularly but doesn't want to talk to his partner. He spends a lot of time in libraries and gets along well with a librarian who calls him "doctor", who respects him and isn't nosy. He is also a private English tutor and tutors a beautiful well-to-do teen girl.
Our third main character is an attractive woman who sells coffee in a large central meat and produce market. She seems depressed, she's better than the people she has to deal with: butchers, produce sellers. One day she is approached by two sleazy guys with a business proposition. The deal is that she will go out to clubs, hook up with a guy, get him drugged so that her business partners can rob him. In exchange she gets a cut of the money and to live in a nice apartment. At first this makes her sick, but eventually she enjoys as she also becomes close to one of her partners.
For the most part all these stories are unconnected but all these characters undergo a deep transformation. The priest visits the infanticidal mother in jail, but she is drawn to evil- pasting her cell wall with newspaper articles of atrocities, she tries to seduce the priest, and reads biblical passages that makes reference to the devil.
The priest in turn is having an affair with the church maid and decides to leave the priesthood for her.
The attractive woman ends up one day raped by a taxi driver and his associate and she decides she wants ultimate revenge.
And Eliseo transformation is more of a slow descent into madness. He is anti-social and good-natured. But his good nature is tested again and again forcing him to leave it behind. He becomes much more confrontational and downright misanthropic. One day he locks himself up in his room to read Jeckyll and Hyde. When he comes out he is transformed. He doesn't put up with annoyances anymore. He takes his gun, some ammo, then withdraws all the money out from his bank. He pays a visit to everyone he knows. Then he walks into a restaurant. Other patrons include the former priest and his lover, the rape victim who know is a server at the restaurant.
At the end we find out that this movie is based on a novel about a real life massacre that took place years ago in Colombia.
This movie is quite good. All the stories are believable and well acted. The pace slows down quite a bit when it comes to Eliseo's story, but that is because he is seemingly such a measured and calculating man. But inside trouble was brewing. The portrayal of his madness is pretty good. He is an introvert. He doesn't scream and make scenes. He absorbs it all into himself until one day he can't take it anymore.
Overall, a very good and enjoyable movie. A success for Colombian film-making. I didn't know the background of it or where it would go so it was very interesting to see how it all turned out. The music is good, it keeps things tense. The cinematography is well done also. While it may seem the stories are disconnected, they are not insofar as all these people become someone they are not. It may seem that their coming together at the end is forced. At the same time, if you think about it and were to pick some people from a restaurant and follow their lives, you may find something akin to what this movie shows.