A young woman who infiltrates the criminal underworld of Guatemala City
in an attempt to find her missing sister.
Review by
Benjamin Poole
Directed by: Justin Lerner
Starring: Karen Martinez, Rudy Rodrigues, Brandon Lopez, Pamela Martinez, Juan Pablo
Olyslager
A few weeks ago, my nephew came home from primary school and told us
that the rest of the boys in his year were now "in gangs": strictly
affiliated groups of eight-year-olds who have pledged a sudden
commitment to one another, and you were either in or out. When
asked what gang activities the preadolescent cliques institute, it turns
out the groups just "go around the playground together," albeit
exclusively. Having young children in the family is fascinating as you
get to observe the tentative, instinctive enaction of what will
eventually become habitual adult behaviours. In the case of these infant
crews, you see the early stirrings of an adult need to belong, to not
only be a part of an entity which is bigger than the self, but one that
is especial, too. The word ‘"gangster," with its criminal connotations,
is a telling extension of the noun; and perhaps the most instructive
gangster film of all time - Goodfellas, of course - is a film about simply, desperately wanting to be part of
a swanky, prohibitive group. The Godfather concerns
familial relations and similar bonds, with "costra nostra" essentially
translating to a snobbish "our thing." Loyalty, honour and family are
the self-romanticising aspects of the genre (side note: away from the
glamour of representation, irl this week the idiots who rioted, who
incited race hate and performed violence in the most cowardly of ways,
are receiving sentences for their follies. So much for "legitimate
concerns": the trend of attempted mitigation in court seems to be
"getting caught up in the moment," enthusiastically and thoughtlessly
becoming part of the mob via a pathetic tribal need to belong to a
faction perceived to exist in elite comparison to an imagined
other).
Justin Lerner's Cadejo Blanco, set in the criminal underworld of Guatemala, is an intriguing
interpretation of the gangster subgenre. In it, Sarita (Karen Martínez
- brilliant) infiltrates a kiddy gang administered and exploited by the
adult ganglords who control the racketeering, vice and drug commerce
upon the coast. Antonymous to the genre's typical wide-eyed initiates,
however, Sarita is a reluctant inductee. This sensible, homely girl has
gone undercover in order to locate her missing younger sister and is
duly horrified by her increasing involvement. Following an opening
sequence of the girls getting ready and then going on to the club (with
its sense of edgy anticipation, the film's best and most relatable
sequence), Bea (Pamela Martínez), who has made noise about
wanting to resolve some business with the shady bar proprietor, doesn't
return home the next day. Sarita, leaving the girls' grandmother behind,
poses as a sex worker in order to uncover the reasons behind her
sister's absence.
The real-life crime situation in Guatemala is
pretty grim, with reputably over a hundred murders committed every week. Within
the diegesis of Cadejo Blanco, these murders are facilitated by the lost boys and girls of Puerto
Barrios, some of whom make up the troop Sarita associates with
(heartbreakingly, the social glue of a "gang" provides vicarious family
for these abandoned children). Lerner worked with local kids in the
making of the film, and apparently weaved details from their own
experiences into the narrative. Perhaps a little too felicitously, as,
following the film's gripping opening, with its authentically
vertiginous sensation of losing someone, the film evens out into the
teen drama of Sarita getting to know the rest of the kids. A lot of the
carefully instigated pace of the affecting prelude dissipates as
Sarita experiences the, at this point, prosaic aspects of the gang and
their hierarchy.
We are compelled, nonetheless, by Martínez's sad, serious face, and
tension is eventually regenerated in a scene where she prepares for the
sting she is about to execute (which poignantly mirrors the earlier
"getting ready" sequences). Although
Cadejo Blanco mercifully opts not to reproduce the
harrowing absolutes of kid-gang predecessor
City of God (with due respect to genre uhr text
Bugsy Malone), and notwithstanding that the trials of Sarita are deeply unpleasant
and portrayed with reasonable lack of sensationalism, there is a
persistent tendency in Cadejo Blanco to undermine the grit
of cold blooded murder and assault with antithetically comic touches: a
mattress wrapped corpse being launched operatically into a swimming
pool, a hair trimmer hopelessly spinning on the barber room floor next
to its dead owner. The juxtaposition makes for an odd tension between
vivid social realism and the established cinematic tradition of crime
film nihilism.
Having no idea of the real-life criminal underworld of Guatemala or
anywhere else, it is impossible to judge the veracity of Lerner's
criminal representations... but they do seem very familiar, drawn as
they seem to be from the existent canon of gangster films, with all
attendant clichés. Is the film proposing a case that these dickheads,
these poseurs with their parasitic lives, imitate art in order to belong
to some perceived pantheon of tough guys; contenders, top of the world,
etc. Or is Cadejo Blanco, with its sun kissed reiteration of genre tropes, vying similarly for
inclusion within the conventional canon? The film's final sequence, of a
bruised and battered heroine, alone on a bus in an agonisingly held
frame, would suggest otherwise. In similar straits to its resolute and
intriguing heroine, Cadejo Blanco is a film which ends up
being a member of the very gang it purports to abhor.
Cadejo Blanco is in UK cinemas
and on VOD from August 23rd.
