Secuestro Express, directed by Jonathan Jakubowicz 2005.
For those that don't know, Secuestro Express stands for 'kidnapping express'. It is not uncommon for people to be kidnapped in Caracas, Venezuela as a means to acquire a quick influx of income. The idea being that a kidnapping is made, a ransom immediately is demanded and within 24 hours the ransom has been received leaving the kidnapping victims to be randomly dropped somewhere.....shook up and emotionally hurt but otherwise ok.
This is the basis for the film and after a short, Guy Ritchie-esque intro to each of the main characters in the film, Carla and Martin are kidnapped by five men and there families are informed that a total of 60,000 (40,000 for Carla and 20,000 for Martin) is wanted for their well being.
The movie actually starts with a a very well done mixture of introduction fictional footage and a decent length montage of actual documentary footage which drives home the point that what is witnessed in the film may be 'fictional' but it is by no means fictional. What you witness in this movie in essence happens with frequent regularity.
As such this movie is not for the feint of heart. The ride it takes the audience on starts of dark and only gets darker and more intense as the film goes on. I found myself coming out of this film completely drained, more so than any film I've seen at the festival, with maybe the exception of Ahlaam. This is mainly because it is so real in its nature and subject matter. No matter what occurs in the film, your mind never detaches itself from the documentary footage seen at the beginning.
Take a look at your typical ransom type film in America. Generally the plot and narrative structure of the film will follow something like this: Introduction to nice family/characters, innocent character than kidnapped, ransom made and police are to not be involved, protagonist either involves police any way or simply becomes the hero himself, and rest of film follows protagonist as the kidnappers almost win but turn out to be ultimately defeated.
Secuestro Express is about as diametrically opposed to this structure as you can possibly get. Carla is the only character who comes close to approaching innocence in the film, especially since Martin becomes less and less an endearing character as the film moves forward. The cops are not involved in the story, there is no hero. Instead the director puts you right in close with the kidnappers and the kidnapping victims for the entire film and the dramatic tension is amplified because of it.
The movie ends up revealing itself to be a mish-mash concern of local class conflict, but more deeply it involves the overall social condition of much of the world. This may not be an exact quote but the film ends with a brief narration stating that "You can either kill the monster or become it". To me what I took from the film and this quote was that we have one of too choices. We can choose to help combat the problems facing our world...things such as poverty, starvation, malnutrition, greed, excessive materialism...or we simply are becoming part of the problem.
I haven't even mentioned the more technical aspects of the film, but suffice it to say they are all well done, especially the acting considering most of the cast is comprised of non-professionals. Mia Maestro, who is one of the only professional cast members, has the looks and acting talent to become the next major actress to make it big, following in the footsteps of Selma Hayek and Penelope Cruz.
A great film, just a really tough ride.
****Four Stars.
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