The film had been advertised in CINEMA. AR within a cycle dedicated to its director, José Celestino Campusano, every wednesday night. Meeting The scourge was a pleasant surprise, perhaps for the wrong reasons.
The first thing I noticed was that the actors were not entirely experienced and this caused their performances to be lame and almost read from the script. The lines were not bad but when they were acted they lost credibility. This made dramatic moments more ludicrous than poignant. Also that serious or funny situations had the opposite effect. In this sense, it is, however, an attractive counterweight because if it had not been those actors I would not have been interested in seeing it on television (because a friend turned it on and coincidence of zapping).
The photography is captivating, allowing the closed and urban spaces of the humble neighborhoods to be accompanied by the open and natural spaces of the Cordillera. There is poetry in many takes and you can feel its beauty, its mystery. In others, the decisions are not the best and the close-ups seem to collide head-on with the noses of the characters. From time to time, too, handheld camera filming is noticeable and distracts from the scene, it runs us away from the development of the plot.
The music reinforces the directive decisions, supporting the succession of the story but the possibilities it has to unfold are rather timid since the dialogues abound and do not give respite to the film. And perhaps it is one of his great faults, not being able to have a balanced rhythm, calling moments that happen in a forced and not very credible way.
As I said, the film was promoted on cable and its cycle was called "Gross Cinema." That name does it justice because with this movie one finds raw material although valuable, and as I read around, worthy of worship, hidden under the scab of its apparent imperfections.
