This popped up as a new release yesterday but I don’t recall hearing much about it before–and the couple stray reviews kept comparing it to City of God or talking (often dismissively) about its ostensible status as a film deploying crime to get at some sociological vision of Colombia. Nah, it’s just a crime film. And I say that with real appreciation, a snap in my step, a gat in my britches — this was a fine surprise.
Perro is not some fast-moving action flick, but rather works in the character-driven style of Elmore Leonard. Set a number of lowlifes on a collision course, let simmer (occasionally spicing with subplots and a dry wit), ’til they explode. We open on two issues — a street funeral is interrupted by a woman who chants over the corpse, setting a spell; a gang of thugs is trying to beat some information out of a rich guy in his home, and (long story short) one of the thugs finds the sought-after dough and decides he’ll make it his own.
The film’s got a jumpy but not jittery style–relying heavily on handheld and a frequent use of flash-cuts to show street markets, crowds, stray dogs tearing at some bit of meat on the ground. Yet director Carlos Moreno’s aesthetic isn’t slap-dash, and the film pays far more attention to structure (lovely compositions, but even more in the way he exploits his frenetic cutting) — he’s like a slightly-narcotized Paul Greengrass. It’s also a frequently funny film, but with nary a wink; this isn’t camp or high-comedy based on vicious thuggery. Like Leonard’s fiction, there’s a comedy inherent in how these characters behave, their social codes, their interactions. (Leonard is the Austen of the criminal underclass.) Maybe comedy overstates it–one or two (especially the cretinous Sierra, played with an exuberant disregard for charisma by … damn imdb is failing me) may think they’re funny, but the film’s stance is neither campy nor caricatured. Performances are strong all around, particularly lead Marlon Moreno as Penaranda.
A great find.