It's a good enough film. The cinematography and the soul of the script are what make the movie for me, though. They chose non-actors it seems for the film and I found it a bit distracting at times.
Props to the focus of the story and that it doesn't all end with days of wine and roses, which makes me happy because I was greeted with as honest a film on the subject back in 1983. Not that it's not, but there are a few moments where I found myself saying, "Come on, really?"
There are moments in the film where red herrings are thrown around (sequence where helicopter and them crawling through a rat-infested tunnel, is an example) and the editing can be a bit off with pacing. Other moments in the story where they are confronted with a difficult circumstances that hadn't brought themselves up until later in the story, and you're surprised that they haven't been confronted with up until that. In other words, conflict arises to serve the movie and the flow of the story; they show up to hit the beats that you expect for a movie to hit. The flow of the story can be a bit arbitrary at times, which when you notice, can be annoying.
For me, the saving graces are the cinematography and the production design. The cinematography provides for a lot of beautiful imagery, with most of the film's images coming from the backdrop of Guatemala. The production design. I feel like the production design captures a lot of the culture and it establishes the world that they live in very well from the beginning of the movie. The image of the worker's feet as they move at the command of their foreman/boss as you see an alternation of naked feet and torn-up tennis shoes is pretty clever and it's this little account for details that make up the environment which I really liked about the film.
The cinematography with the character's in Guatemala is beautiful to look at and made the film for me. I guess the middle of the film and the way certain conflicts arise struck me as contrived.
The final sequence as Enrique makes it to his new job and reflects before the credits roll, was awesome and it made me reflect more positively on the film.
So, yeah: watch it.
Props to the focus of the story and that it doesn't all end with days of wine and roses, which makes me happy because I was greeted with as honest a film on the subject back in 1983. Not that it's not, but there are a few moments where I found myself saying, "Come on, really?"
There are moments in the film where red herrings are thrown around (sequence where helicopter and them crawling through a rat-infested tunnel, is an example) and the editing can be a bit off with pacing. Other moments in the story where they are confronted with a difficult circumstances that hadn't brought themselves up until later in the story, and you're surprised that they haven't been confronted with up until that. In other words, conflict arises to serve the movie and the flow of the story; they show up to hit the beats that you expect for a movie to hit. The flow of the story can be a bit arbitrary at times, which when you notice, can be annoying.
For me, the saving graces are the cinematography and the production design. The cinematography provides for a lot of beautiful imagery, with most of the film's images coming from the backdrop of Guatemala. The production design. I feel like the production design captures a lot of the culture and it establishes the world that they live in very well from the beginning of the movie. The image of the worker's feet as they move at the command of their foreman/boss as you see an alternation of naked feet and torn-up tennis shoes is pretty clever and it's this little account for details that make up the environment which I really liked about the film.
The cinematography with the character's in Guatemala is beautiful to look at and made the film for me. I guess the middle of the film and the way certain conflicts arise struck me as contrived.
The final sequence as Enrique makes it to his new job and reflects before the credits roll, was awesome and it made me reflect more positively on the film.
So, yeah: watch it.