La estrategia del caracol by ex-combatant, Sergio Cabrera, is one of few Colombian films of the 1990s that will be remembered as a national cinematic classic by future generations. It documents the literal eruption into visibility of a community of working-class characters dislodged from their dwelling in the historic centre of Bogotá, their subversive interruption of the abstracting powers of speculative capital, and their recovery of voice within local representational systems.
The film combines humour with a critique of social injustice, whilst at the same time offering a model of how working-class bonds can be maintained in the face of the socially disjunctive effects of capitalism. Thus, as well as offering a hilarious portrait of police inefficiency, it offers serious meditations on 'la injusticia de la justicia', and takes a stance against those who perceive violence as the sole means to resist social injustice. Colombian history may have reduced many dreams to rubble; but as the film shows, no one is going under without defending their dignity to the very end.
The film combines humour with a critique of social injustice, whilst at the same time offering a model of how working-class bonds can be maintained in the face of the socially disjunctive effects of capitalism. Thus, as well as offering a hilarious portrait of police inefficiency, it offers serious meditations on 'la injusticia de la justicia', and takes a stance against those who perceive violence as the sole means to resist social injustice. Colombian history may have reduced many dreams to rubble; but as the film shows, no one is going under without defending their dignity to the very end.