Kleine Ratten

In most of Latin America, beneath the bottom in the social scale there still live people. And a lot of those people are children. Kids without parents. With no school. Bereft of the joys of childhood. Deprived of any future. Children for whom abuse, rape and even violent death are everyday occurrences.

This view ‘from underneath the bottom' is a recurrent theme in recent Latin American cinema or in movies based on Latin American novels.

A few examples: `Capitaes da Areia' (Engl. title ‘The sandpit generals'), directed by Hall Bartlett in 1972, written by Brazilian Jorge Amado, was based on true stories about streetwise rascals in Salvador de Bahía. Another Brazilian film, `Pixote: A Lei do Mais Fraco' (Hector Babenco, 1981) revived the same theme using real abandoned kids as players, and when Fernando Ramos Da Silva, the leading actor, was actually killed in those same streets, Paulo Halm and Jose Joffily continued the saga with the sequel `Quem matou Pixote?' (‘Who killed Pixote?', 1996).

In Argentina, the recent `Pizza, birra y faso' (Adrián Caetano & Bruno Stagnaro, 1997) reformulated the subject for present day Buenos Aires, and there are two great and dreadful Colombian films (both by Víctor Gaviria): `Rodrigo D.' (Engl. title ‘Rodrigo D: no future', 1990) and `La vendedora de rosas' (1998), which painted the same motif in still darker colors.

Now a new member has added to this family of true-to-life films, about the menacing insurgence of the desperado human products that arouse from the explosive mixture of extreme poverty, social segregation and a complete lack of hope.

The 1999 Ecuadorian film `Ratas, ratones, rateros' (Engl. title ‘Rodents') has just won the Trieste Latin Film Festival (both the Grand Prix and the Opera Prima awards), after being acclaimed at the ‘Mostra' in Venice and at the Toronto Film Festival. Its author (writer/director) is Sebastián Cordero, born in Ecuador (1972) and a graduate of USC. The film was completed on a very low budget (just below the 200,000 dollars line). 35 mm. 109 min.

‘Rodents' shares with its predecessors a common and implicit wrath against social injustice, a widespread compassion for its victims, a taste for street language and vulgarisms, a tragical and hopeless film ending and a certain apocalyptic comprehension of the future.

No one can blame Cordero because of this point of view. It's quite understandable. Ecuador, a small South American country, is immersed in a deep economical crisis, has changed four governments in the last five years and is currently ranking among the most corrupt countries in the world. Therefore, there is little room for hope.

Yet Cordero stands on that last piece of hope. While Gaviria's appalling films should be considered almost docudramas, because of their extensive use of wild and improvised footage and sound, ‘Rodents' is entirely fiction. This fact allows Cordero to develop the film's subject without any trace of pamphleteer's or social reformer's speech, while giving his theme a treatment entirely free of any effete or wimpy false sympathy for the street hardened characters he depicts.

Based on reality, but reconstructed and rearranged in the mind of an artist, the film becomes a forceful condemnation of the situation it enlightens and must be considered a powerful weapon in the struggle for a better future in his country.

A standing ovation for Sebastián Cordero, a young master.

"Rodents" is a bit different from other movies about Latin American criminals and lowlife in that it shows the interconnections among classes. The sad protagonist, Salvador, is an aimless kid at the bottom edge of the lower middle class; one of his cousins is in the greedy, selfish, stupid bourgeoisie, and his other cousin, the sociopath Angel, is in the "underclass." Like Mario Vargas Llosa's stunning novel, Conversation in the Cathedral, "Rodents" is saying that these classes don't exist separately from each other--the degradation of life in many large cities throughout the world is a product of class interactions. The viewer feels sorry for Salvador, who like the middle class as a whole, is trapped between brutal street criminals and the disgusting rich, caught in a spiral of meaningless violence that he has absolutely no control over. Incidentally, I agree with Ecuadorian reviewers who say this movie is not representative of life in Quito; it's true enough that Ecuadorians have generally remained civil and non-violent, despite the horrible things that corrupt politicians and the IMF (and others)have done to their economy. However, the movie packs a punch and has a lot to say about life in many places beyond Ecuador. A must-see.

Sebastian Cordero is one of the great filmmakers of Latin America. Thanks to him, this is the first movie with several international awards such as: Best First Movie and Best Movie in The Latin America Cinema of Trieste, Italy (1999). Best Actor (Carlos Valencia) and Best First Movie in The Spanish American Film Festival of Huelva, Spain (1999). Best Editing Award in The Havana Festival (1999). A honorable mention in the Bogota Film Festival (2000). Thanks to Cordero, Ecuador is in the international spotlight. CRONICAS (Chronicles), his latest feature starring John Leguizamo, was showed at Cannes in the "Un certain regard" section with excellent reviews. Long live Ecuador! Viva el Ecuador!

I had heard a lot about this ground breaking, acclaimed film about street kids in Ecuador at Film Festivals in Europe and South America in 1999. But, I just got to see it today at the Miami Hispanic Film Festival. Take it from one who's experienced that scene in the crime ridden, cocaine-permeated large capitals of South America...This film- RODENTS, in English is the next most realistic (and much less life-threatening) thing to being in that scene. It's not just the characters themselves, their neighborhoods, their language, their crimes which are so meticulously recreated. The alluring yet potentially lethal high that cocaine in all its forms, especially in smoked form in this film, has never been as faithfully reproduced. "Rodents" main, ex-convict character, and the special effects surrounding his base smoking scenes, are mind boggling. The movie starts with such a scene. After that, it's as if one totally understands what draws the character to continue committing such incredible low, almost sub-human crimes. The high is so intoxicating, even when juxtaposed with graphic sex, that for once, and perhaps the only time in cinema, the poison that particular drug contains is made completely clear. What ensues in "Rodents" in the never-ending quest for that "high" constitutes some of the most realistic portrayals of youth crime, and social class clashes in Latin America film. However, seeing all that, with the almost too real-to-be-true cinematic insight of the addiction which causes these social tragedies, is a unique experience. Not to be missed.

"Ratas, Ratones, Rateros" tells of a street punk who returns to his roots only to creates problems which reverberate throughout his family. A mediocre flick at best with poor production value and a story which is less than engaging and goes no where, "RRR" is difficult to recommend for other than those few foreign film freaks who salivate over anything with a subtitle. You don't get Cadillacs out of a Volkswagon factory so be prepared for a very poor quality film before getting involved with this apparently earnest effort out of Ecuador. (C-)