Our Lady of Assassins
Barbet Schroeder's new film of Colombian author Fernando Vallejo's 1994 semi-autobiographical novel presents the drug cartel town of Medellin as hell, but it's a rather perfunctory one.
Paramount Classics may be hoping to get some of the same boxoffice as Julian Schnabel's "Before Night Falls", another film about a gay Latin American author, but that film had a lush visual style and a humanistic (if somewhat scattered and opaque) approach to its subject.
"Our Lady" has a bleak, nihilistic vision: None of the atrocities recounted carries much weight. Audiences may be intrigued by the promise of a glimpse of daily life in notorious Medellin, but they'll likely be put off by what is ultimately the movie's lifelessness.
Schroeder has made the film using high-definition video, and the picture clarity is far superior to digital video. But there's a slight fuzziness to the grain that doesn't reach film's sharp-edged precision. Schroeder and cameraman Rodrigo Lalinde give the picture a flat, brownish look, even when filming the surrounding hills of the city.
A gay writer named Fernando (German Jaramillo, a stage actor in Colombia) has come home to Medellin for one purpose -- to die. He's not ill, just aging and weary. A friend sets him up with Alexis (Anderson Ballesteros), a young man scarred by gang life and violence. He carries a gun and kills several people in front of Fernando, some in self-defense, some not.
In Medellin, fireworks light up the sky when a drug shipment has made it to the United States, and signs futilely prohibit the dumping of corpses. Churches are both houses of worship and shooting galleries for junkies and hustlers. (Schroeder shot the film in Medellin at considerable risk. He required armed guards for the equipment and bodyguards for himself.)
Fernando accepts all of this with ironic bemusement. Alexis eventually meets his fate, and Fernando mourns by picking up another boy who reminds him of Alexis, Wilmar Juan David Restrepo). Wilmar turns out to have had an improbable relationship with Alexis, and Fernando realizes that the only way he can save Wilmar is to get him out of Medellin.
The film's main problem is that Fernando's love affairs exist on the same level as the violence -- they have no resonance. The only points of attraction between Alexis and Fernando seem to be that the former is young and pretty and the latter has some degree of wealth. (It's more business transaction than love match.) And the fact that Fernando eulogizes Alexis by collecting another cutie doesn't convince us of his deep and abiding commitment.
The chief enjoyments of Schroeder's earlier films have been surprising, unexpected performances by established stars. One thinks of Mickey Rourke and Faye Dunaway in "Barfly" or Jeremy Irons and Glenn Close in "Reversal of Fortune". But Jaramillo doesn't demonstrate much personality in his character's railings against God and life, and we never really see an internal awakening of hope.
OUR LADY OF THE ASSASSINS
Paramount Classics
Les Films du Losange
in association with Le Studio Canal Plus
Producers: Jaime Osorio Gomez, Barbet Schroeder, Margaret Menegoz
Director: Barbet Schroeder
Writer: Fernando Vallejo, based on his novel
Director of photography: Rodrigo Lalinde
Production designer: Monica Marulanda
Music: Jorge Arriagada
Costume designer: Monica Marulanda
Editor: Elsa Vasquez
Color/stereo
Cast:
Fernando: German Jaramillo
Alexis: Anderson Ballesteros
Wilmar: Juan David Restrepo
Alfonso: Manuel Busquets
Running time -- 100 minutes
No MPAA rating...
Paramount Classics may be hoping to get some of the same boxoffice as Julian Schnabel's "Before Night Falls", another film about a gay Latin American author, but that film had a lush visual style and a humanistic (if somewhat scattered and opaque) approach to its subject.
"Our Lady" has a bleak, nihilistic vision: None of the atrocities recounted carries much weight. Audiences may be intrigued by the promise of a glimpse of daily life in notorious Medellin, but they'll likely be put off by what is ultimately the movie's lifelessness.
Schroeder has made the film using high-definition video, and the picture clarity is far superior to digital video. But there's a slight fuzziness to the grain that doesn't reach film's sharp-edged precision. Schroeder and cameraman Rodrigo Lalinde give the picture a flat, brownish look, even when filming the surrounding hills of the city.
A gay writer named Fernando (German Jaramillo, a stage actor in Colombia) has come home to Medellin for one purpose -- to die. He's not ill, just aging and weary. A friend sets him up with Alexis (Anderson Ballesteros), a young man scarred by gang life and violence. He carries a gun and kills several people in front of Fernando, some in self-defense, some not.
In Medellin, fireworks light up the sky when a drug shipment has made it to the United States, and signs futilely prohibit the dumping of corpses. Churches are both houses of worship and shooting galleries for junkies and hustlers. (Schroeder shot the film in Medellin at considerable risk. He required armed guards for the equipment and bodyguards for himself.)
Fernando accepts all of this with ironic bemusement. Alexis eventually meets his fate, and Fernando mourns by picking up another boy who reminds him of Alexis, Wilmar Juan David Restrepo). Wilmar turns out to have had an improbable relationship with Alexis, and Fernando realizes that the only way he can save Wilmar is to get him out of Medellin.
The film's main problem is that Fernando's love affairs exist on the same level as the violence -- they have no resonance. The only points of attraction between Alexis and Fernando seem to be that the former is young and pretty and the latter has some degree of wealth. (It's more business transaction than love match.) And the fact that Fernando eulogizes Alexis by collecting another cutie doesn't convince us of his deep and abiding commitment.
The chief enjoyments of Schroeder's earlier films have been surprising, unexpected performances by established stars. One thinks of Mickey Rourke and Faye Dunaway in "Barfly" or Jeremy Irons and Glenn Close in "Reversal of Fortune". But Jaramillo doesn't demonstrate much personality in his character's railings against God and life, and we never really see an internal awakening of hope.
OUR LADY OF THE ASSASSINS
Paramount Classics
Les Films du Losange
in association with Le Studio Canal Plus
Producers: Jaime Osorio Gomez, Barbet Schroeder, Margaret Menegoz
Director: Barbet Schroeder
Writer: Fernando Vallejo, based on his novel
Director of photography: Rodrigo Lalinde
Production designer: Monica Marulanda
Music: Jorge Arriagada
Costume designer: Monica Marulanda
Editor: Elsa Vasquez
Color/stereo
Cast:
Fernando: German Jaramillo
Alexis: Anderson Ballesteros
Wilmar: Juan David Restrepo
Alfonso: Manuel Busquets
Running time -- 100 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 7/8/2004
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Our Lady of Assassins
Barbet Schroeder's new film of Colombian author Fernando Vallejo's 1994 semi-autobiographical novel presents the drug cartel town of Medellin as hell, but it's a rather perfunctory one.
Paramount Classics may be hoping to get some of the same boxoffice as Julian Schnabel's "Before Night Falls", another film about a gay Latin American author, but that film had a lush visual style and a humanistic (if somewhat scattered and opaque) approach to its subject.
"Our Lady" has a bleak, nihilistic vision: None of the atrocities recounted carries much weight. Audiences may be intrigued by the promise of a glimpse of daily life in notorious Medellin, but they'll likely be put off by what is ultimately the movie's lifelessness.
Schroeder has made the film using high-definition video, and the picture clarity is far superior to digital video. But there's a slight fuzziness to the grain that doesn't reach film's sharp-edged precision. Schroeder and cameraman Rodrigo Lalinde give the picture a flat, brownish look, even when filming the surrounding hills of the city.
A gay writer named Fernando (German Jaramillo, a stage actor in Colombia) has come home to Medellin for one purpose -- to die. He's not ill, just aging and weary. A friend sets him up with Alexis (Anderson Ballesteros), a young man scarred by gang life and violence. He carries a gun and kills several people in front of Fernando, some in self-defense, some not.
In Medellin, fireworks light up the sky when a drug shipment has made it to the United States, and signs futilely prohibit the dumping of corpses. Churches are both houses of worship and shooting galleries for junkies and hustlers. (Schroeder shot the film in Medellin at considerable risk. He required armed guards for the equipment and bodyguards for himself.)
Fernando accepts all of this with ironic bemusement. Alexis eventually meets his fate, and Fernando mourns by picking up another boy who reminds him of Alexis, Wilmar Juan David Restrepo). Wilmar turns out to have had an improbable relationship with Alexis, and Fernando realizes that the only way he can save Wilmar is to get him out of Medellin.
The film's main problem is that Fernando's love affairs exist on the same level as the violence -- they have no resonance. The only points of attraction between Alexis and Fernando seem to be that the former is young and pretty and the latter has some degree of wealth. (It's more business transaction than love match.) And the fact that Fernando eulogizes Alexis by collecting another cutie doesn't convince us of his deep and abiding commitment.
The chief enjoyments of Schroeder's earlier films have been surprising, unexpected performances by established stars. One thinks of Mickey Rourke and Faye Dunaway in "Barfly" or Jeremy Irons and Glenn Close in "Reversal of Fortune". But Jaramillo doesn't demonstrate much personality in his character's railings against God and life, and we never really see an internal awakening of hope.
OUR LADY OF THE ASSASSINS
Paramount Classics
Les Films du Losange
in association with Le Studio Canal Plus
Producers: Jaime Osorio Gomez, Barbet Schroeder, Margaret Menegoz
Director: Barbet Schroeder
Writer: Fernando Vallejo, based on his novel
Director of photography: Rodrigo Lalinde
Production designer: Monica Marulanda
Music: Jorge Arriagada
Costume designer: Monica Marulanda
Editor: Elsa Vasquez
Color/stereo
Cast:
Fernando: German Jaramillo
Alexis: Anderson Ballesteros
Wilmar: Juan David Restrepo
Alfonso: Manuel Busquets
Running time -- 100 minutes
No MPAA rating...
Paramount Classics may be hoping to get some of the same boxoffice as Julian Schnabel's "Before Night Falls", another film about a gay Latin American author, but that film had a lush visual style and a humanistic (if somewhat scattered and opaque) approach to its subject.
"Our Lady" has a bleak, nihilistic vision: None of the atrocities recounted carries much weight. Audiences may be intrigued by the promise of a glimpse of daily life in notorious Medellin, but they'll likely be put off by what is ultimately the movie's lifelessness.
Schroeder has made the film using high-definition video, and the picture clarity is far superior to digital video. But there's a slight fuzziness to the grain that doesn't reach film's sharp-edged precision. Schroeder and cameraman Rodrigo Lalinde give the picture a flat, brownish look, even when filming the surrounding hills of the city.
A gay writer named Fernando (German Jaramillo, a stage actor in Colombia) has come home to Medellin for one purpose -- to die. He's not ill, just aging and weary. A friend sets him up with Alexis (Anderson Ballesteros), a young man scarred by gang life and violence. He carries a gun and kills several people in front of Fernando, some in self-defense, some not.
In Medellin, fireworks light up the sky when a drug shipment has made it to the United States, and signs futilely prohibit the dumping of corpses. Churches are both houses of worship and shooting galleries for junkies and hustlers. (Schroeder shot the film in Medellin at considerable risk. He required armed guards for the equipment and bodyguards for himself.)
Fernando accepts all of this with ironic bemusement. Alexis eventually meets his fate, and Fernando mourns by picking up another boy who reminds him of Alexis, Wilmar Juan David Restrepo). Wilmar turns out to have had an improbable relationship with Alexis, and Fernando realizes that the only way he can save Wilmar is to get him out of Medellin.
The film's main problem is that Fernando's love affairs exist on the same level as the violence -- they have no resonance. The only points of attraction between Alexis and Fernando seem to be that the former is young and pretty and the latter has some degree of wealth. (It's more business transaction than love match.) And the fact that Fernando eulogizes Alexis by collecting another cutie doesn't convince us of his deep and abiding commitment.
The chief enjoyments of Schroeder's earlier films have been surprising, unexpected performances by established stars. One thinks of Mickey Rourke and Faye Dunaway in "Barfly" or Jeremy Irons and Glenn Close in "Reversal of Fortune". But Jaramillo doesn't demonstrate much personality in his character's railings against God and life, and we never really see an internal awakening of hope.
OUR LADY OF THE ASSASSINS
Paramount Classics
Les Films du Losange
in association with Le Studio Canal Plus
Producers: Jaime Osorio Gomez, Barbet Schroeder, Margaret Menegoz
Director: Barbet Schroeder
Writer: Fernando Vallejo, based on his novel
Director of photography: Rodrigo Lalinde
Production designer: Monica Marulanda
Music: Jorge Arriagada
Costume designer: Monica Marulanda
Editor: Elsa Vasquez
Color/stereo
Cast:
Fernando: German Jaramillo
Alexis: Anderson Ballesteros
Wilmar: Juan David Restrepo
Alfonso: Manuel Busquets
Running time -- 100 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 4/25/2001
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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