By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Barbet Schroeder
Starring: Anderson Ballesteros | Germán Jaramillo | Juan David Restrepo
Original language title: Virgen de los sicarios
Country: colombia, france, spain
Year: 2001
Running time: 98
IMDB: http://us.imdb.com/Details?0250809
Diane says: “Found OUR LADY OF THE ASSASSINS to be a very powerful film. Fernando, a 50ish writer, returns to Medellin, Colombia, no longer the pastoral town he grew up in, but a setting for the constant undercurrent of casual shootings. As Fernando takes up with a couple of boys from a brothel (loose explication), and sees them quick to kill people he is peeved by, he visits churches, and concludes that God has left this place. He sees God’s house is a pit of hell, inhabited by gluesniffers and beggars. But Christ is crucified over and over again in the boys of Medellin.” 4 cats
Kevin says: “Another of my very favorite films of the Chicago Film Festival. The script is extremely insightful and at times out-right hilarious. It’s flawlessly performed by German Jaramillo and Anderson Ballesteros and directed with real sincerity by Schroeder. This one should be playing pretty much everywhere, and I absolutely recommend you catch it.” 5 cats
Laura says: “Adapted from his 1994 novel by Fernando Vallejo and directed by Barbet Schoeder (REVERSAL OF FORTUNE), OUR LADY OF THE ASSASSINS is a film of contradictions, at once poetic and tender while also brutally violent, where a machismo culture is shown matter-of-factly through the eyes of homosexual characters and gang members pay homage to the Virgin Mary before gunning people down in the streets.”4 cats
For Laura’s complete review: “http://www.reelingreviews.com/ourladyoftheassassins.htm“
Robin says: “Fernando is an enigma as a man returning home to a world that is completely different from the one he left so long ago. The rise and fall of Pablo Escobar, the yoke put upon the country by the drug trade, the violence perpetrated by the country’s rulers and, particularly, its youth all washes over Fernando but, apart from a frequently used look of melancholy, he seems unmoved by the events.” 3 cats
For Robin’s complete review: “http://www.reelingreviews.com/ourladyoftheassassins.htm“
Stephen says: “Now more than ever, it is important that we increase our efforts to understand what is going on in the world outside the U.S.A., and this story about the breakdown of civilized respect for life in Medellin, Colombia is essential viewing. Directed by Barbet Schroeder, it is an adaptation of an autobiographical novel by Fernando Vallejo, which covers his return to Medellin after many years absence, and his liaisons with teenaged boys living mostly on the streets. These boys carry handguns in their waistbands and use them as casually as kleenex. It is a bleak view of the human universe, beautifully filmed,
and one of the most important films of the year.”
For Stephen’s complete review: “http://www.stephenbrophy.org/review/queer/ourladyassassins.htm“