Plaza Catedral

One of the best low-budget flicks in a long time.

Circumstances make a mid-aged divorced woman cross paths with a young teen boy in a dangerous city. Two very different lives in two different but adjacent worlds, both in pain. There is suspense, some violence but not emphasized, and tragedies. The superficial story is somewhat cliché, but not the characters; and as their human details are shown, they make the story feel real, relatable.

No karate kicks, no fast moving vehicles or slow moving rain of bullets; only very good writing and direction makes the story very involving. I am very glad I picked this over so much "fantastic" stuff.

It's a depressing, bleak movie without much sense or plot. The pace is extremely slow. It would benefit from about 30-40 minutes of hallway shots, sad faces, elevators, streets, and so on just being removed. We watched close to half of it before beginning to fast forward. It's also extremely predictable and the music is kind of annoyingly depressing. It is realistic and some of the acting is good but overall, it does not leave one with a lasting impression. The relationship of the woman to her ex is incomprehensible, and the highly improbably death of her child is difficult to believe, Overall, the protagonist seems stupid in the sense of being oblivious to danger and doing senseless things such as driving a mercedes into the ghetto... Which takes away from the believability of the whole thing.. I did not feel any compassion or emotion for the perpetually sad chain-smoking woman, but it was sad to know that the actor playing the boy had ben shot before the film was released.

At first, I was expecting something like a home invasion, but it was much more. Somewhere in the last act I was disappointed as things were rushed, but by the end when i got to know this is a true story it hit me hard, as it was fiction and i was drawn in.

I am aware that Central America has lot of untapped potential, there is no huge film scene or Cinematheques. I hardly remember watching movies coming from the region. I have been following the works of Jayro Bustamente, truly one of the best filmmakers working today. Then i remember watching Luis Argueta's El silencio de Neto/The Silence of Neto (1994) and couple of documentaries that had all the Oscar bait tropes. But one thing is certain, i feel after the Oscar nomination there will space for many more narrative films.

The plot of the film introduces us to Alicia (Ilse Salas ), an architect living alone with a sophisticated lifestyle. She is divorced, tormented by events from her turbulent past. She lives alone, all by herself and passes everything through herself, sometimes looked as if she had not slept for days battling her internal conflicts. Then Chief (Fernando Xavier De Casta) enters, a 13-year-old street urchin running some errands for local thugs, ushering cars to parking places in front of Plaza Cathedral. He insists to help Alicia to park her car, but she turns it down and slowly they both start to get along as she gives him space with limited restrictions. She begins to care for him, sometimes argue, share light moment and even drink together. Chief's scars begins to take a toll on Alicia's psyche and then you yourself will begin to doubt - the film jumps from drama, to home invasion thriller, reflecting the socio economic reality. After all, these theme is seen repeatedly in the film till the pre-credits homage. I want to register that this film does not glamorize its subject matter like many poverty fetish glorification documentaries. This strikes a balance despite the hurried last act, i loved the film and might be the same experience depending on what you make of it. Regardless, this is one of the year's most unsettling and also one of the year's best film.