Los debutantes

Director/writer Andrés Waissbluth worked seven years to complete this two hour film about the crime underground in Santiago, Chile, and perhaps that is one of the reasons the resultant film seems episodic and in need of editing. OR, maybe this is the technique of a director who shows a fine sense of film noir storytelling.

Two brothers - Silvio the elder (Néstor Cantillana) and Victor the younger (Juan Pablo Miranda) - have moved to Santiago from their home in Temuco after their parents' death and Silvio works to support Victor's education. On Victor's seventeenth birthday Silvio takes the virgin out to the clubs where he encourages Victor to lose his virginity with one of the club's stripper/prostitutes. In a tender scene Victor must face his nascent impotency while Silvio is out on the club floor impressing the 'owners' with his potential for hire.

Silvio goes to work for the 'gang' as a bodyguard/henchman and makes good money to support Victor's schooling. But Victor has eyes for one of the dancers at the club named Gracia (Antonella Ríos) and begins to woo her, dropping out of school incurring Silvio's angry disappointment. Gracia just happens to be the squeeze of the club gang's leader Don Pascual (Alejandro Trejo) who is Silvio's boss! Gracia is the glue that holds this tale together as she is the paramour of Victor, Silvio, and Don Pascual and the consequences of this bizarre ménage a trois has deadly results. Through a means of re-telling the story through the eyes of Victor, Silvio, and Gracia we grow to understand the vulnerabilities and the cracks in each character that allow for the downfall that results.

Sound like a Chilean Pulp Fiction? Well, it is and it is filmed in a brutally colorful, dark manner that includes a lot of frontal nudity (both female and male) and provocative sexual encounters. But in the end the sensual aspect of the director's vision is what drives this film, playing on the debutante virginal psyche against the hardcore professional sex worker with success. The cast is fairly strong, especially Antonella Ríos in the demanding role of Gracia. There are enough twists and turns and replays of incidents you think you understood the first viewing but that change dramatically in impact when told through the eyes of a different character. Bordering on two hours, some judicious editing would have helped the impact of the film. In Spanish with English subtitles. Recommended for those who like the edgy film noir style and the art of South American cinema. Grady Harp

this film tries to be immensely clever, and Tarantino-like

before you try that though, you need solid filmic fundamentals. these include good sound, editing, set design etc...

lets talk about the sound in this movie. absolutely atrocious. i have never been more distracted by a sound track, ever

and before we talk about low budget, film made in Chile etc.. lets bear in mind that desent sound these days is far more achievable than it ever has been. anywhere. and more info on technique is available then ever before

the sound in this movie is plain bad. the foley in particular is out of place and inappropriate throughout, the atmos is equally terrible. i heard at least four loud clicks during the movie, which are the result of poor sound editing. the sound inside cars is awful, the sound of car doors closing is awful. the sound of the lady singing is wrong. foley is either overboard, or simply not there like the sound person just got bored and gave up. the spaces are wrong. everything about it is wrong

and yet, not letting limitations of creativity get in the way, at the same time the movie tries boldly to be clever. for example the sound of the aquarium is used in the following street scene. we hear sound when we're not supposed to. sound edits precede visual cuts. every trick in the book is used, and yet the foundations are just not there

editing-wise we have scenes using heavy jump cuts, we have tinkering around with the time line etc etc etc, yawn. all of these techniques are imitated to a splendidly low standard

overall the mix is crap, the sound is crap. and so, the film is crap. how can a movie with so many fundamental flaws be considered for awards and high praise? Chile's cinematic new wave? the best creative output that Chile has to offer? i hope not, and i think not.

my theory is that Chile's more selective and better talent avoided this film like the plague maybe due to its risqué content. equally, the film has likely received so much unwarranted critical acclaim from so called 'world-cinema' enthusiasts for the same grubby reasons. they likely revel in it's trashiness. of course film critics rarely pay attention to technical details and quality

this film is rubbish. it's all mouth and no trousers and is never deserving of a 6.8 rating. the film has all the production quality of a cheap Tarantino, new wave inspired porno!

I saw this movie in Santiago last summer and unfortunately it will probably not be released outside of that country. It would be interesting to watch it again with English subtitles as Chilean Spanish is notoriously difficult (especially for someone like myself who left that country as a small child in 1973 and grew up speaking English). At times I could have sworn the characters were speaking Italian. The movie is a kind of a South American version of Pulp Fiction with three interweaving narrative strands focusing on a stripper, an inexperienced teen, and his more experienced older brother. It's no Pulp Fiction, but it's superior to most Pulp Fiction knock-offs. Juan Pablo Miranda is very convincing as the teen. Antonella Rios, who plays the stripper, would make even someone who wasn't born in Chile want to go there. Alejandro Trejo is convincing as a gangster/strip club owner, and Anita Alvarado, a local scandal queen known as the "the Geisha of Chile", puts in a cameo as the prostitute who first deflowers the Miranda character. Only Nestor Cantillana as the older brother disappoints, not because he's a bad actor, but because this rail-thin pretty-boy is woefully miscast as a tough-guy bodyguard. Still, check it out if you get a chance.

"Los Debutantes" tells of two brothers who fall for the same women - a singer/stripper who works for a sleazy club owner - and find themselves embroiled in a mess of love, sex, murder, extortion, and more. This two hour flick tells its story three times, each from the perspective of one of three different characters and each time putting more meat on the bones of the plot, raising questions along the way, then answering them in the end. A cheap drama noir which can't hide its low budgetness behind its minimal cast of four, low end production value, and novel approach to story telling, "Los Debutantes" shows some talent (especially Rios who works hard in each substory), but ultimately succumbs to it's obvious lack of dinero. Probably not worth the time for most, "Los Debutantes" may have some value for foreign film buffs, especially Spanish speakers.

Los Debutantes is the story of two orphaned brothers who have moved to Santiago from the South after their mother dies. The confident and streetwise Silvio, the elder brother, gets a job working for a sleazy strip club's owner after taking the naive Victor there for his 17th birthday.

As Silvio blossoms under his boss's tutelage, both brothers get involved with the owner's sexy and manipulative mistress, Gracia. As the film unfolds, characters are redefined as we begin to see the subtle and overt ways that each one manipulates the next.

The film is well made, with good cinematography and fast pacing. It's also pretty sexy, with a lot of nudity and some fairly explicit sex scenes. It uses the now-popular technique of layering different scenes from different points of view, out of chronological sequence. Many people hate movies like this because they don't understand what's going on - Memento, Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs, and many other good films use this device. The plot itself is really nothing new, there are elements of Body Heat, Pulp Fiction, and many other good film noir.

As the different layers are revealed, our understandings of the characters and their motivations evolve. While the plot may be somewhat cliché, it is also clever and entertaining.

I would call it an enjoyable movie, worth watching, but nothing memorable. I haven't seen many films from Chile, and it's always interesting to see film noir from other countries. Other than that, rent it if it's available but don't lose any sleep if it isn't.