Caracol

Mar 20, 2023

No Comments The XXVIII International Film Festival from National Cinemathequeheld in 1994, was one of those that left the greatest mark on my cinephile memory, there were titles that marked many things, such as bullets over broadway (Allen), the duo of Smoking/No Smoking (Fat), The little Princess (Cuaron), Cinema of Tears (Pereira Dos Santos) and the masterpiece of Greenaway Macon’s babybut also, among them, there was a Colombian title, The Snail Strategywhich ended up whetting my appetite for Latin American cinema and starting a search for films that became the Holy Grail of much of my training. The inhabitants of La Casa Uribe, a central Colombian neighborhood, are going to be evicted after many years of litigation. One of the tenants, a Spanish anarchist, proposes that they all leave using the snail strategy, taking everything on their backs, thus beginning the dismantling of the neighborhood to move everything to another piece of land. To achieve this, they reach an agreement with the owner, promising to leave the property on a certain date, and to leave the house painted. The film is directed by Sergio Cabrera, who was educated in China as a child and who, upon returning to Colombia, joined the People’s Liberation Army to fight against the government, in his four years as a guerrilla, the story of how he was on the verge of losing a limb due to a machete wound or the one that he was about to die from a shot in the back given by mistake by his sister. After leaving the guerrilla he moved to Beijing, where he studied philosophy. That’s where he meets the documentarian George Ivens and with their support he began to make his first short films and was able to travel to London to study film. read also Danieska Espinosa That past in favor of social struggle is essential to understand his cinema, which has been present in his films, such as his first film. Dueling Techniques: A Matter of Honor (1988) or his most recent tape Everyone leaves (2015), so it is not surprising that in The Snail Strategy that element is found, narrated in a way that borders on magical realism and whose history touches all Latin American countries. Cinema with a social overtone often falls into pamphleteering, creating characters so unreal that one cannot really identify with them, only seeing them from a distance as something utopian, so unattainable that at the end you are left with the feeling of unrealizable sadness. . There are very few films or directors who can step forward and create throbbing, emotional and real stories, this is the case of The Snail Strategywhich, although it is located in Colombia, we could do it anywhere in Latin America and it would work the same, even the scenarios are similar, one could place this story on a street in the center of Mexico City without problems, just as did Iria Gomez Concheiro in before oblivionwhich takes up many elements of the Colombian film but in reverse. The film is maintained by the ingenious script co-written by Humberto Dorado, Ramón Jimeno, Jorge Goldenberg and the director Sergio Cabrera Especial The tape is sustained by the ingenious script co-written by Humberto Dorado, Ramon Jimeno, Jorge Goldenberg and the director, who allows himself to create recognizable characters, from the inept lawyer who has what it takes to delay things, to the homosexual who will use his skills to seduce the villain, without neglecting the neighbors, to the religious fanatics. , to those who seek to create a social dream. But where, above all things, the true enemy never ceases to be present, a state that he does not see for its inhabitants, abandoning them and making them fight on their own. The Snail Strategy It opened my eyes to a nearby cinema, to one that unites us as a continent, where I could realize that the stories that are suffered are not foreign to us, it was the film that led me to seek not only information but to try to see the films and Learn more about Latin American cinema. And, it is undeniable, that sometimes when I see a freshly painted house, the “hijoeputa” Painted house of Casa Uribe and smile. chronicle scenario