Punto y raya

This movie it's a joy, a wonderful experience to find the craft of this essential art in a new voice like the voice of Venezuela. It's funny (really Funny), sad, but it's after all a human movie, with a very mood script. The vision of the director make you feel about the really essence of the south American people. The plot it's about a little war between Colombia and Venezuela. got a very interesting new talents (Roque Valero rules with his character of the Venezuelan soldier) Now Edgar Ramirez work in the new movie of Tony (Top Gun) Scott. A great experience thanks to this powerful movie.It's in other word: supreme. When you see this movie, you really feel the art in the screen.

Punto y Raya (Step Forward) went definitively beyond my expectations. It's a very original story, which counts with outstanding performances and has an implicit message about how important friendship and loyalty are during difficult times. Taking place during a (not that far from reality) situation of real tension in the Venezuelan-Colombian border, Punto y Raya makes viewers go into the story, which develops as a drama, with many touches of that typical Latin American kind of humor. The several awards that it's won in different international festivals are very well deserved, and this is a movie which is really worth watching, because it's one of the good productions with the "made in Latin America" stamp.

I'm Venezuelan, Usually I never liked Venezuelan movies, to exception of "Huelepega", I don't know, it never gets my attention, maybe on TV, but never in the cinema, it's like that. But when I seen it on DVD, ooh, is just Terrific!, it was a real good movie about our boundary-war situation with Colombia for many years, and it is represented by a "malandro" (like a thief) who was sent to the frontier to lend military service. You Know the rest. And if you don't, go to see it! It is very entertaining, if you like these movies about drugs, sex, holdups, fights, infidelity, etc. All made in my country, Venezuela, you won't be sorry

PD: Dora Mazzone has nice boobs, don't you think so?

PUNTO Y RAYA ('A Dot and a Line') is a touching little film from Venezuela, a movie with low budget and high aspirations that manages to explore friendship and bonding between two warring factions in a most sensitive way. Director Elia Schneider and writer Henry Herrera deserve their 2005 Oscar consideration for Best Foreign Film, Venezuela and we can hope this talented team partners for other outings. Shot with a digital camera that bleeds the color to almost black and white, the production values may at first put off the audiences used to either classy black and white movies or richly colored ones, but this slight flaw should not deter the enthusiastic craftsmanship on the part of everyone involved in making this terrific little film.

The film opens and closes with battle scenes, setting the tension that exists along the river that divides Venezuela from Colombia, two countries who not only have the innate political differences but also are involved in the internationally significant war on drugs - primarily cocaine and its many derivatives. Cheito (Roque Valero) is a young small time but smart and wily drug dealer from Caracas who is captured by the police and 'sentenced' to the Venezuelan army to patrol the border of Colombia. He has a beautiful sister Yosmar (Daniela Alvarado) whom he protects like a watchdog. Simultaneously a serious, naive, conservative young Colombian named Pedro (the hunky and very fine Edgar Ramirez), 'saving himself' for his beloved girlfriend Lutecia (Daniela Bascope), volunteers for the Colombian army to combat drugs and fight the guerrillas responsible for the drug trafficking along the border.

Through a continuing series of circumstances Cheito and Pedro are thrown together and it is Cheito's cunning and 'smarts' that keep the two men surviving - though at most time they are personally at odds. Their involvement in the drug cartels they engage and the varying sides of the two armies they dodge result in some hilarious comic bits. In their quieter moments the illiterate Pedro asks Cheito to read his letters from his Lutecia and write return correspondence - a chance for Cheito to voice his warped libidinous nature unknown to the naive Pedro. The two young men bond, survive dangerous situations, and eventually find some quirky changes in their plans for the future. The ending of the film is both sad and tender: by the time the story is over we have taken the two misfit buddies into our hearts.

Both Roque Valero and Edgar Ramirez are strong actors and manage to make credible this complex relationship that vacillates between enemy and comrade. They create a chemistry on screen that makes the movie work very well indeed. Not only is the story an entertaining one, it also gives an insight to the magnitude of the drug problems that cruelly determine lifestyles in South America. While it never preaches, it delivers strong messages for outsiders to consider. And in the end it is a very fine little film that deserves audience wide attention. Grady Harp

transitively latinamerican and borderline dramatic, punto y raya hit us as a fairly well told story about friendship altering people's life. of course there's a movie about this little hypothetical war between countries, and the intimate war between two guys for a long-time-no-seen-virgin-girlfriend, but mostly it's about two enemies trying to stay alive through extreme circumstances: the war itself, the jungle, crazy women living in colombian guerrilla camps, and a pair of boots they shall share. the best thing about this film is elia's work with actors direction, pushing them through the adventure and making them seem not only believable but amazingly genuine. a great direction and production work from one of venezuela's most prolific film dupla (novoa-schneider), actually our favorite (our respects to garimpeiro and huelepega)for its perfect inclusion of humor inside a drama environment.