Heartbreaking, Picturesque
Colombian Drama
'Chocó' Gets A Trailer
by
August 1, 2012
It's titled simply Chocó, a film set in Colombia, which centers on the struggles of a 27-year-old mother of 2 (the titular Chocó), working a poorly-paid job in a gold mine, living in a tiny wooden hut, who's married to a reckless and abusive man named Everlides, a marimba player who gambles away their life savings.
Further...
... She truly believes that things will get better. But then she loses her job, her daughter wants her birthday cake and Everlides spends the last of their savings. Chocó finds herself standing in the village shop she passes every day and in front of which Everlides drinks away all their money and loses at dominoes. She looks at the colourful cakes on the counter. You won’t get anything for nothing here, the fat shopkeeper reminds her. If you want a cake, I want you.
The film is producer and screenwriter Jhonny Hendrix Hinestroza’s directorial debut.
It premiered at the Berlinale in February this year, in its Panorama section. S&A was repped at Berlin this year thankfully, with reviews provided by Denise VanDeCruze. She saw Chocó and reviewed it mostly positively, with some reservations, HERE.
All we've had until today in terms of looks at the film is a 7-minute behind-the-scenes video of Chocó; an official trailer has finally surfaced, and is embedded below (sorry - like the preview before it, it's not subtitled in English; but I'm definitely sucked in by the images I see here, and would like to check this out). No word on where it'll screen next, or if it'll travel stateside. I suspect one of the few African Diaspora film festivals in the USA have their eyes on it for later this year:
Trailer Oficial CHOCÓ de Jhonny Hendrix Hinestroza from PROIMAGENES COLOMBIA on Vimeo.
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Chocó: Berlin Film Review
The Bottom Line
Quietly feminist character-study of a downtrodden Colombian wife is well-intentioned but underdeveloped.
Revenge turns out to be a dish best served flaming hot in Chocó, a low-budget Colombian hymn to female resilience and endurance. But while its plot may pivot on a blazing conflagration, this earnest indictment of domestic violence never quite manages to catch fire and feels overstretched even at 80 minutes. Built around a quietly impressive turn from beautiful newcomer Karent Hinestroza - wife of director/co-writer Jhonny Hendrix Hinestroza - as the eponymous heroine, it's an atmospheric if slim miniature whose exotic provenance will attract some festival bookings and possibly TV play.
Thirtyish Chocólatico - nicknamed Chocó - lives with her husband Everlides (Esteban Copete) and two small children in a rudimentary but cozy riverside hut amidst lush rural greenery. Working long hours as a gold-panner and laundrywoman, and later in an artisanal mining-operation, Chocó is the family's main bread-winner. No-good 'musician' Everlides spends most of his time in the village with his buddies - drinking, playing marimba and gambling, before stumbling home drunk to force his carnal urges on his unwilling spouse. The upcoming seventh birthday of their daughter Candelaria (Daniela Mosquera) - and her desire for a particular cake from the local tienda - ends up bringing tensions to a head, with violent consequences.
Confusingly, Hendrix Hinestroza shows us his story's climax quite early on (the hut consumed in flames) and the main bulk of the running-time comprises events over the several days leading up to this point. It's an unnecessarily complicated structure for what is essentially a simple tale in which noble Chocó has to endure the bestial attentions of both Everlides ("he doesn't beat me up that much") andtienda-owner Ramiro (Fabio Iván Restrepo) - conveyed in scenes that contain some frank, full-frontal nudity.
Hendrix Hinestroza captures the rhythms and feel of this remote, heavily-forested area, aided byClaudia Victoria's vibrantly colorful production-design and Paulo Pérez's widescreen digital cinematography. Daniel Chaves' casting is another plus - it's evident that many of the villagers on view are non-professionals playing variations of themselves (no fewer than 21 'mining women' are credited), and scenes involving children have a particularly engaging, casual immediacy.
Indeed, the vivid documentary-style elements of Chocó are the most effective, as we observe how rituals, songs, religion and community spirit help sustain people of extremely limited material means. If only a more stimulating narrative framework could have been developed to sustain it all - as it is, the action comes to a sudden halt at the 76-minute mark after Chocó takes a drastic step to end what have clearly been years of abuse. It's a jarring finale, one that sits awkwardly with what's gone before - though not unsatisfying in its dealing out of painfully just deserts.
Bottom line: Quietly feminist character-study of a downtrodden Colombian wife is well-intentioned but underdeveloped.
Venue: Berlin Film Festival (Panorama), Feb. 15, 2012.
Production company: Antorcha Films, in co-production with HD Cinema Colombia
Cast: Karent Hinestroza, Esteban Copete, Fabio Iván Restrepo, Daniela Mosquera, Sebastián Mosquera
Director: Jhonny Hendrix Hinestroza
Screenwriters: Alfonso Acosta, Jhonny Hendrix Hinestroza
Producers: Maritza Rincón, Jhonny Hendrix Hinestroza
Co-producer: Gustavo Torres Gil
Director of photography: Paulo Pérez
Art director: Claudia Victoria
Costumes: Juan Bernardo Enríquez
Editor: Mauricio Vergara
Music: Esteban Copete
Sales Agent: Antorcha Films, Cali, Colombia
No rating, 80 minutes.
>via: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/choc-berlin-film-review-295142
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Another review from S&A reader
Denise VanDeCruze:
I totally understand why the director of Chocó, Jhonny Hendrix Hinestroza, cried while introducing the movie’s premiere at the Berlinale. He spoke about the fact that this was the first time that a story about Afro-Columbians would be told on film. It was a monumental moment because although there are more blacks in South America than North America, they are absent in media representations. Part of the reason I was relentlessly teased as a child was because my black American school mates did not believe I was from South America because I was black.
Chocó began with the beauty of rural Colombia, the singing of an Afro-Columbian spiritual gathering, and a sunset. The pseudo-documentary style leaves you unprepared for the violent bits that follow. The first time we meet the georgeous protagenist, Chocó, she is being raped by her husband, a drunk abusive musician who gambles. He has only one sober scene, one in which his face is not shown. Otherwise he has two adjectives and one tragic certainty. He is the cause of everything and the center of nothing. Chocó is holding it down for her two kids. She nurses memories of her new unbruised love with her husband and hopes of building a better life for her children who are already scarred from the abusive household. She is the mule of the movie that rebels the way mules do – with blind determination.
Between the heartbreak, there is a lush glimpse of paradise lost. The filmmaker made it clear that he wanted to paint a portrait that mirrored reality. Listen to the podcast below for a more in-depth explanation. He grew up on the roads in the film and wrote what he saw. But I left with an ache in the pit of my stomach about this movie because I knew I could not shake it. It exhausted me. I want to forget parts of it. I know that this story happens but the fact that stories of black trauma are so often the only representations of blackness I see on film. In particular, I have never seen a dark-skinned black woman on screen as a main character that was not being abused in some way. In the podcast, you will hear me ask the director if he was afraid of reinforcing stereotypes with this movie. He is an Afro-Columbian and I don’t think that was his intention.
The acting was superb. I believed every minute, every scene. The children were perfectly casted and many scenes were a mixture of documentary and and staged scenes. One can’t determine who is acting and who is not. This allows the climax to have a powerful and lasting impact. Yet little is revealed about the inner-workings of its main characters leaving the audience to endure brutal events that have little emotional context.
Although this movie is powerful and technically well made and superbly acted, I was not clear about what I could walk away from it with. I don’t think it is film’s job to give me a feel-good message or to always paint pretty pictures of people of color. Yet the rarity of representative images coupled with the pathology of the images of black folks in media creates a context that requires more from filmmakers that just a good story. The myth of black pathology is always a good story but it is over-told.
>via: http://blogs.indiewire.com/shadowandact/berlinale-2012-review-of-afro-colombi...