Sunday, January 27, 2008

Sunday, movies, and popcorn


I saw the Ecuadorian film, Cuando Me Toque a Mi today. (It might be translated as When My Number is Up.) It was probably not the greatest pick for my mood, grimly exasperated with many, many things about this country. (Apologies in advance to my most kind Anonymous Cuencano reader who told me to read Freire. He or she will most certainly be offended by this post.) The movie is set in Quito, and its leading characters are an alcoholic mortician, a taxi driver in the wrong place at the wrong time and his wife who is frantically searching for him, a homicidal drug addict, a mother at her young son´s bedside. The movie follows a series of interlocking stories in Central Quito over the course of several days, with reflections on death, family, homophobia, immigration, bribes and influence peddling. It is a really interesting reflection of the brutality of certain aspects of Ecuadorian culture, the bureaucracy, the incompetence of police, how families support one another selectively and sometimes not at all, according to their norms and biases. I found it to be dead on in its critiques and artistically consistent with its goals, much of the film takes place in the drab pastel hallways of a hospital. I don´t know if this will get released theatrically in the States, but if you run across it, its worth a look.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

No soy de Cuenca!

SergtPeppa said...

I kind of want to see this, am kind of worried that I will totally lose it, lock myself in my casa forever and never come out for fear of this movie bringing all of my random negative feelings of Ecuador that I hope I manage to supress, to come to the surface. It sounds good though...