Cold Assassins misses its mark

Our Lady of the Assassins is one of those movies that has great intentions and much to say, but just can't cut it as a whole. In the end, the audience is left wondering if the director just decided to give up on his own movie.

This film is about a gay writer, Fernando (Germ?n Jaramillo), who comes back to his home city of Medellin, Colombia after thirty years. The city has been taken over by drug dealers and motorcycle gangs. Assassinations happen everyday and no one cares. Each time a new cocaine shipment makes it across American borders there is a fireworks celebration. Obviously, it is not the greatest of times.

Upon Fernando's return, a friend of his introduces him to a young gang-banger named Alexis (Anderson Ballesteos), who subsequently becomes Fernando's lover. The two of them float through the city conversing about life and religion while Alexis shoots other gang members and ordinary citizens at the drop of a hat.

If the summary doesn't grab your attention, it's probably because the movie itself is boring. How could a film that involves so much killing be boring? Well, there is absolutely no emotional involvement in these assassinations. They happen so quickly and no one seems to be bothered by them. The banality of the killings could be one of the points of the movie, but it just doesn't work in this background.

Director Barbet Schroeder started his film career working with the greats of the French New Wave era and this film is trying to reflect that style of filmmaking (cinma vrit). It is shot on very high resolution video (which still doesn't look as good as film), but just doesn't give you a "real" feel about the people and places you're seeing.

Most of the film feels like a surreal dream. It is to Medellin what Midnight Cowboy is to New York. While the city is a big character in the film, each movie is more about the instability of the city and how it verges on anarchy, not the characters trying to regain their humanity.

The old, traditional ways versus the modern lifestyle seems to be a big theme of the film. Underneath this idea is religion. The old faith of the church and the cross versus the new faith of the streets and the gun - the two main characters represent the two sides of this theme. Fernando is continuously questioning his own faith and the existence of God. But we never see or hear anything about his past and therefore don't really understand where he's coming from. Does he think God is nonexistent because of the way Colombia is today, or was it something that happened to him in the past? This necessary background story is never given for any of the characters.

Personally, I feel the film should have followed the new order rather than Fernando's view. I would much rather see a story about the Colombian kids who have a life expectancy of 16, the kids who live by the gun and bless their bullets for good luck. The state that Colombia is in today revolves around their story, yet the film uses that story as a device to put forth the same themes.

Director Schroeder has been hit-or-miss since the beginning of his career. One of his better films is Barfly (written by Charles Bukowski). In 1990, Schroeder received an Oscar nomination for his best film, Reversal of Fortune (for which Jeremy Irons received an Oscar). But between these greats he has helmed such Hollywood trash as Desperate Measures (with Michael Keaton) and Single White Female.

Obviously more comfortable with darker story lines, Schroeder seems to be dependent on a good writer. Though filmmaking is a collaborative effort, a good director should be able to compose his or her own art. Most directors (outside of Hollywood) try to serve as a catalyst for some type of feeling in an audience member. Our Lady of the Assassins leaves you feeling cold.

While the ideas of religion are interesting to hear and the film obviously has much to say about Colombia today, it ultimately fails. The characters are flat; they are vessels for the writer's socio-political views. Colombia could very well be the next El Salvador, but this film didn't make a strong argument. The audience only gets a dose of unrealistic violence and oddly coincidental plot points.