La virgen de los sicarios
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La virgen de los sicarios (international title: Our Lady of the Assassins) is a film by Barbet Schroeder adapted from the novel of the same title by Fernando Vallejo about a Colombian author in his fifties who returns to his hometown of Medellín after 30 years of absence to find himself trapped in an atmosphere of violence and murder caused by drug cartel warfare.
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[edit] Movie Plot
Fernando (Germán Jaramillo) meets Alexis (Anderson Ballesteros), a handsome youth, at a party of one of his old friends and immediately falls for him. The two begin a pederastic relationship which, apart from the sex, consists mainly in Fernando telling Alexis how pastoral the city was when he left, while Alexis explains to Fernando the ins and outs of everyday robbery, violence, and shootings. Even though Fernando has come home to die, his sarcastic worldview is mellowed somewhat by his relationship with Alexis.
He soon discovers that Alexis is a gang member and killer (or sicario) himself, and that members of other gangs are after him. After several assassination attempts fail because of Alexis' skillful handling of his Beretta, he is finally killed by two boys on a motorcycle. Fernando is partly responsible for this, as Alexis' weapon has been lost before the murder due to Fernando's suicidal impulses.
Fernando visits Alexis' mother and gives her some money, and then walks through the streets aimlessly when he encounters Wilmar (Juan David Restrepo), who bears a striking resemblance to Alexis, not only in his looks but in his entire manner.
He invites Wilmar for lunch and the two begin an affair, rekindling the kind of relationship he had with Alexis. Wilmar is also a killer, but it is a shocking revelation to Fernando when he finds out that Wilmar is the one who shot Alexis. He vows to kill Wilmar, but then learns it was Alexis who started the violence by killing Wilmar's brother, calling for vengeance on him by Wilmar.
When Wilmar goes to say goodbye to his mother before he and Fernando leave the country together, he is killed as well. Seeing that the vicious cycle of atrocities in Medellín denies happiness, Fernando presumably commits suicide, if the last scene is taken to hint at that.
[edit] Film Production
The film was shot with early high-definition video cameras (Sony HDW-700) in the year 2000 under strict security as the amount of street crime in Medellín as depicted in the movie is quite accurate. The digital video gives the movie a cinéma vérité look and was one of the first uses of HD video for a feature film.
At face value, the film can be seen as an indictment of the terrible situation in present-day Medellín—however, the character of Fernando is not unproblematic. While during much of the movie he seems like an innocent bystander to the action, his fascination with all things morbid and moribund shows that to some degree he seeks out and enjoys the violence.
This is also evidenced in his reactions to the killings done by his lovers, that range from speechlessness to a feeling of almost divine power as time passes. He also does not leave the city despite the clear danger to Alexis' / Wilmar's lives, even though he has inherited enough money to go wherever he wants. Therefore, the film can also be seen as depicting the symbiotic relationship between the author and his subject matter, namely the Medellín gangs.
[edit] See also
[edit] About the Novel
A growing body of scholarship and critical commentary already exist about this controversial work, most of it in Spanish. The brief sections below attempt to give the reader a basic understanding of some of the main approaches to what undoubtedly is a central work in Colombian fiction of the 1990s, and perhaps the most elaborated and discussed fictional work dealing with events related to the drug trade and its deletereous consequences in Colombian society.
[edit] Historical Context
The City of Medellín (1990’s) This is the place where La Virgen De los Sicarios takes place. Vallejo chose wisely since this city became the main drug city in all of South America during the nineties. This city was home to maybe the most powerful cocaine cartels in the world. The main distributor of the illegal product created many social changes. The tension the emerged between the drug lords (mainly Pablo Escobar) and the authorities produced something like a civil war within the city. The characters of Vallejo’s are part of one of the new types of social groups created as result of the drug problem. “Los sicarios” were a group hired killers that derived from all the tension. The majority are young kids that do not know more than to kill for money offered by members of the “Medellín Cartel” that were trying to get rid of authority figures that threaten their drug lord status and transactions. Most of the executions happened at the victim’s door or car, as it does in Vallejo’s Novel. This city expanded during this period because of the help of drug lords who were trying to gain the popular vote. These traffickers would build houses and give them to poor people and these people would do jobs for them as a type of pay. This expansion created chaos once these bandits were caught by officials, since the people who lived on these expansions no longer receive dirty money the execute dirty jobs. These communities are also called “comunas” and are also the home to many of the characters in the book, like Alexis, one of the main characters. This story grasps the main situation of Medellín, Colombia during the late eighties and early nineties. The two main characters explore all the limits of this dangerous city, this odyssey points the social changes brought by the drug problem thru the daily happenings of the main character.
[edit] The concept of "race" in Vallejo
The concept of race, which is mostly divulgated by Fernando(the protagonist) in a negative manner is represented in La virgin de los sicarios novel in a very paradoxical way. It is paradoxical because he criticizes the ‘Colombian race’ in such a way that makes him seem racist. In fact, he seems to be influenced by social Darwinism when dealing with ‘people of color’ by generalizing in one of his statements. Indicating that the indigenous and African people are of bad blood, bad race, bad personality, and of bad law, he then furthers his argument by stating that there is no worse mix than that of the Spanish and the indigenous and the black. Because they produce ‘saltapatrases(counterproductive people)’ in other words monkeys, apes, primates…(translated from novel). Needless to say, this statement is outrageously offensive and inappropriate for modern times. Modern times is explicitly stated because keep in mind that there was a time in history when this statement was completely accepted by society as an entirety. The paradox is apparent from the beginning of the novel as the protagonist runs around the city with these low second class citizens that he is so quick to criticize.
[edit] La virgen de los sicarios as an urban novel
A person can define La Virgen de Los Sicarios as an urban novel for one reason. It takes place in a city called Medellín. This city has a large population and has grown to be Columbia’s second largest. As such, it has a lot of potential but it is plagued by societal factors such as violence, killing, and drugs. Another thing to note is the social, political, and economic factors that are typical of life in a big city. Furthermore, city life leads to excessive individualism and because of that a sense of community is diminished. Examples of this include punk rockers who listen to music, people who sit outside in a city and are killed, and people who are in certain places of a city and then are killed for no reason. The city has so much violence and killing that it is difficult for it to better itself. Urban areas deal with problems such as this. It could also be argued that this novel is urban because it represents the cultural and social position of the city. One thing that Fernando Vallejo does is put emphasis on certain social aspects such as being in a gay relationship, dealing with violence, and finding the difficulty to live on when there is so much chaos in the city.
[edit] Role of Homosexuality
In the novel the main protagonist, Fernando, is a homosexual. However, there is never a sense of ridicule or marginality due to his sexual preference. In fact, it seems that most of the sicarios in the novel have slept with Fernando. Their masculinity is never called into question. The novel describes a world that is ultimately masculine. Women have no real role within the novel except to lament the death of their sons. It seems that within the novel being homosexual is an acceptable expression of masculinity. Machismo, in the novel, seems unreleated to sexual prowess over women. In fact, Fernando at one point describes homosexuality as a harmonious pairing of equals and decries heterosexuality as a bestial mixing of two different species. Sexual orientation is not a point of marginality but Fernando does criticize gender. Women to him are unnecessary. In the novel, it is between equals that real love and understanding can occur as it does between Alexis and Fernando and later Wilmar and Fernando.
[edit] Catholicism in the Novel
The characters in La Virgen de los Sicarios allude to parts of Catholicism even though they do not exhibit the typical characteristics of Catholics or follow church doctrine. Catholicism is the predominent religion in Columbia. The title refers to the matron of the sicarios.
Sicarios wear scapulars around their wrist, ankle, and neck in order have good business, improve their shooting accuracy, and get paid on time. The scapular is part of Catholic tradition, and it is to be used as an outward manifestation of a Catholic’s devotion toward a moral life consequently excluding them from hell. Alexis, however, uses it as a good luck charm and attributes it to the reason he is alive. He also mentions how to prepare holy bullets, which are soaked in holy water and then prayed upon by the sicario in order to have perfect accuracy.
The characters’ spend time at the church of Maria Auxiliadora, and the Church is criticized because of the priests who confess and absolve the sicarios every time they commit murder. At one point of the novel there is an allusion similar to a biblical story since a church is converted into a mall. Ultimately, there is a misunderstanding of Catholicism, and the Church's lack of structure is part of the chaotic setting.
