Film review: 'Vendedora de Rosas'
Almost 150 years ago, Hans Christian Andersen wrote a heart-wrenching classic about a poor street urchin titled "The Little Match Girl". Essentially, this Colombian film is an updated version of that hard story.
"La Vendedora de Rosas" (The Rose Seller) is a harrowing contemporary horror story set, appropriately, in the drug-crazed city of Medellin. While it will likely win support on the festival circuit, the grim subject matter is not likely to make it a candidate for U.S. distribution.
Every bit as morbid as Luis Bunuel's shocking depiction of the slums of Brazil in "Los Olvidados" and as frighteningly lurid as Miramax's "Kids", which played here two years ago, "La Vendedora de Rosas" is a shocking document of modern-day squalor.
In this ferocious yet tender story, Monica (Lady Tabares) tries to celebrate Christmas in a traditional style. But she's a street kid, subsisting with other young girls who have fled their abusive families, and she's reduced to selling roses to restaurant diners and young lovers.
Her cohorts include several such kids whose sole goal is to make it through the day: glue sniffers and petty thieves and, most ominously, predatory older male teens who manipulate and abuse Monica and her younger friends. It's undeniably a tough viewing experience, watching these pre-teens being subjected to ferocious and dangerous indignities.
The episodically structured screenplay captures a wide array of kids, as well as their common problems and fears. Credit screenwriters Victor Gaviria, Carlos Henao and Diana Ospina with building a full-frontal look at these children's degrading lives.
Their brutal existence is sympathetically but unsparingly captured by director Victor Gavira, whose tight compositions and percussive pacing charge the story with the proper urgency and sense of danger.
Overall, the kids are terrific, especially Lady Tabares as the waif Monica. Both child-like and street-smart, she's a moving blend of vulnerability and moxie. Additionally, Mileider Gil is achingly sympathetic as a pre-teen whose mother beat her.
Technical contributions are aptly thorny, a fitting mix of hard-crusted image-making. Special credit to cinematographers Rodrigo Lalinde and Erwin Goggel for the assaultive framings.
La Vendedora de Rosas
Producciones Filmamento
CREDITS:
Director: Victor Gaviria
Screenwriters: Victor Gaviria, Carlos Henao, Diana Ospina
Directors of photography: Rodrigo Lalinde, Erwin Goggel
Production designer: Ricardo Duque
Music: Luis Fernando Franco
Editors: Agustin Pinto, Victor Gaviria
CAST:
Monica: Lady Tabares
Andrea: Mileider Gil
Judy: Marta Correa
Milton: Alex Bedoya
Cachetona: Diana Murillo
Claudia: Liliana Giraldo
Running Time: 120 minutes...
"La Vendedora de Rosas" (The Rose Seller) is a harrowing contemporary horror story set, appropriately, in the drug-crazed city of Medellin. While it will likely win support on the festival circuit, the grim subject matter is not likely to make it a candidate for U.S. distribution.
Every bit as morbid as Luis Bunuel's shocking depiction of the slums of Brazil in "Los Olvidados" and as frighteningly lurid as Miramax's "Kids", which played here two years ago, "La Vendedora de Rosas" is a shocking document of modern-day squalor.
In this ferocious yet tender story, Monica (Lady Tabares) tries to celebrate Christmas in a traditional style. But she's a street kid, subsisting with other young girls who have fled their abusive families, and she's reduced to selling roses to restaurant diners and young lovers.
Her cohorts include several such kids whose sole goal is to make it through the day: glue sniffers and petty thieves and, most ominously, predatory older male teens who manipulate and abuse Monica and her younger friends. It's undeniably a tough viewing experience, watching these pre-teens being subjected to ferocious and dangerous indignities.
The episodically structured screenplay captures a wide array of kids, as well as their common problems and fears. Credit screenwriters Victor Gaviria, Carlos Henao and Diana Ospina with building a full-frontal look at these children's degrading lives.
Their brutal existence is sympathetically but unsparingly captured by director Victor Gavira, whose tight compositions and percussive pacing charge the story with the proper urgency and sense of danger.
Overall, the kids are terrific, especially Lady Tabares as the waif Monica. Both child-like and street-smart, she's a moving blend of vulnerability and moxie. Additionally, Mileider Gil is achingly sympathetic as a pre-teen whose mother beat her.
Technical contributions are aptly thorny, a fitting mix of hard-crusted image-making. Special credit to cinematographers Rodrigo Lalinde and Erwin Goggel for the assaultive framings.
La Vendedora de Rosas
Producciones Filmamento
CREDITS:
Director: Victor Gaviria
Screenwriters: Victor Gaviria, Carlos Henao, Diana Ospina
Directors of photography: Rodrigo Lalinde, Erwin Goggel
Production designer: Ricardo Duque
Music: Luis Fernando Franco
Editors: Agustin Pinto, Victor Gaviria
CAST:
Monica: Lady Tabares
Andrea: Mileider Gil
Judy: Marta Correa
Milton: Alex Bedoya
Cachetona: Diana Murillo
Claudia: Liliana Giraldo
Running Time: 120 minutes...
- 5/15/1998
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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