Pariente

Set in a rural town of Colombia in 2005, this is a deliberately paced but well presented drama, written and directed by Ivan D. Gaona, who's making his feature debut here.

It opens with a mysterious murder on a dark isolated road as a group of men meet a possible paramilitary member, after which a large amount of cash is confiscated by the men, which will lead to all kinds of intrigue and repercussions. This comes at a time in Colombia where a peace accord had been struck , whereby the paramilitary groups have agree to disarm to the government.

Amidst all this, there are various subplots involving two men vying for the affections of the same woman, who, as it turns out, is pregnant and about to marry one of them. There's also a number of unsolved thefts occurring of both crops and animals from local farms. Additionally, bloody corpses keep showing up in the area. Finally, in a quirky way there'll be much discussion about music cassettes and the love songs on them.

They'll be some twists in the plot as well, all leading to a violent showdown. If you're expecting all the pieces to fit together neatly here, you'll be disappointed, I believe. Or if you only want constant action, then this is not your film. But if you have the patience to stay with a slowly unfolding drama, then you may very well like this one.

To note: English subtitles are quite small, so I had to play the DVD on 2x zoom.