A vendedora de Rosas

La Vendedora de Rosas is a companion piece to Victor Gaviria's 1990 Rodrigo D:no futuro, about the lives of street boys from Medellin,Colombia. Vendedora focuses on girls equally affected by poverty, ignorance, abuse and neglect. It earns a place next to Mira Nair's Salaam Bombay and Hector Babenco's Pixote, excellent urban youth films in the tradition of Bunuel's Los Olvidados. Vendedora does not shy away from depicting the effects of drugs, violence, and family dysfunction while allowing for brief moments of tenderness and solidarity, even joy. Gaviria has enlisted street kids in enacting events from their daily lives, during 48 hours preceding Christmas. The film refuses to cheapen their plight with plot contrivances or stylistic flourishes. The spanish spoken is specific to the youth of Medellin, a welcome challenge to most native speakers. The fate of the characters evolves naturally from earlier scenes, without being predictable. I recommend La Vendedora de Rosas to anybody who considers film a window to the world of folks we wouldn't otherwise be able to access and an opportunity to understand it.

The movie does not show the whole country's way of living, but it shows the part some people would like to hide.

It is loaded with a lot of coursing and everything that could be considered as an unhealthy way of living, but in between all that descriptive stuff, it shows us the human side of those people.

One thing I liked a lot was the use of natural actors. The director and producer did the tough job of working with real life characters, so, everyone in the movie is just doing what he/she does in his regular life.

It tells us the story of Monica (a homeless teenage girl) who every day is fighting for her life in the scenario of an unsane capitalist world. It shows how her friends, who are mostly preteen prostitutes, muggers and hitmen are also human beings who deserve to live. Violence taking place everywhere, alcoholism, and drug addiction are just a small part of what living in the streets really means. Meanwhile, Monica takes care of Andrea, a cute little run away from home girl who is saved from many dangers because of Monica's astonishing maternal instinct.

As it is said by Seth in "City of Angels" : "Some things are real whether you believe in them or not".

The quote in the title is said by a child (one of Monica's friends) while he is inhaling some cheap glue with which homeless kids use to get high. It means : "Why should I want any shoes, if anyway I have no food?"

This is not a movie to entertain, it is meant to open the viewer's eyes to the "invisible" world of homeless children in Latin America. This is more a documentary than a film but the plot, based loosely on Han Christian Anderson's "The Match Stick Girl," is strong and compelling. Painful to watch at times, it is meant to be disturbing. Which is why I can say it I liked it and I recommend it, even though it haunted me and robbed me of sleep and I don't believe I will ever see it again.

These young people survive in the streets with no supervision and no one to provide for them, yet they are still going through the same tumultuous problems of the average teen; boyfriend-girlfriend troubles, gossip, friendship betrayal, and so on...and they cope with all their problems by sniffing glue. With the effects of the glue showing itself in these children one scene after the other it can seem to be too much as the plot begins to come together.

It is my understanding that the majority of the children were not actors but real street kids, and although the plot was scripted by the filmmaker the children were just being themselves, showing us a voyeuristic peek into their lives. And on a more disturbing note; none of these children have survived the street.

This incredible film is a must see for anyone interested in film as more than entertainment.

A heart-breaking urban tale that makes optimal use of natural actors and improvisation, together with very basic photography,but doesn´t have any of the technical troubles of the director´s previous release, "Rodrigo D". It renders a very authentic look to city-living in Colombia, without misleading morals or boring social commentary. However, it´s lyricism sets it apart from any pretensions of "real" cinema.

If you get offended easily I don't recommend this movie. If you like your movies with happy endings, you shouldn't watch this film. In the tradition of "Pixote" and "Kids", "La vendedora de Rosas" shows the reality and (hallucinations) of children, who grow up in the street, survive in the street and die in the streets. It features an array of indigent pre-pubescent kids doing an insane amount of drugs, prostituting themselves and living with/killing each other. The movie features no real actors. All the kids are playing themselves. Today, Colombian media reported that one of the actresses featured in the movie was found dead. She is the second actor who has died since the movie was released. I like the movie because it presents reality as is. It doesn't pretend to give us solutions or even explain why those kids have live the way they do. It's unflinching and more real than anything committed to film before or since.