For months I have had a copy of «Amparo» on my computer, and it is not until today that I decided to watch it, after reading the Macondo prizes awarded by the Colombian film industry. The film won the awards for best fiction film, direction, screenplay, cinematography, art direction, costumes, and visual effects.
I have no doubt that director Simón Mesa Soto had the best intentions, when he decided to expose so many dirty and shameful aspects of Colombian society, which are similar to those of the rest of the world, for those who want to see them. But at the same time, the movie is so overelaborated as an aesthetic proposal, that, in my case at least, it had a distancing effect to the point of not caring much about the drama of this single mother who, in the 1990s, refuses to let the Army kidnap his fragile son to send him to the dread Caquetá state to die, for some stupid cause, as in any war.
What stands out the most is Amparo's relationship with men --although her mother, a role recited by a natural actress, is a key character--, from her overprotection of son Elías, whom has been "recruited", to the abuse of her occasional lover, followed by the men in different positions of power who are going to determine whether or not they release the young man. Amparo is harassed, groped, tricked, penetrated like a rubber doll; except for the father of her daughter Karen, who helps her in the search for money to free Elías.
If one strips the story of the "effects" of the mise-en-caméra, «Amparo» is a melodrama of scarce originality. That is what remains in the end. We have all seen too many filmic mothers who go through endless tribulations to protect their children, with or without a happy ending. When one eludes the impression that Mesa Soto is looking for effects (such as leaving characters out of the visual field), one realizes that the director knows how to play with camera positions, how to move it, how to sustain the story with the support of the excellent leading actress Sandra Melissa Torres (inexcusably forgotten at the Macondo Awards), the cinematographer Juan Sarmiento and film editor Ricardo Saraiva.
However, none of this cancels out the fact that it is a hackneyed story, adorned with ideas that do not always work, such as the cry that Amparo performs at her lover's house, as a last resource to obtain a loan, which allows her to explain her "maternal debt" to Elías.
I do not know if with the passing of days, I will change my opinion. Sometimes I do because we critics are often scatterbrains... I will wait for another adventure from Simón Mesa Soto, but for now, I feel that «Amparo» is not much above a.
