Caracas amor a muerte (2000) Online

This film deservedly won the Best Film award at the Los Angeles Latino Film Festival this year. It is the story of a young girl, Aixa, who gets pregnant by her boyfriend, a criminal sought after by the police. Her grandmother wants her to get an abortion, and convinces a young doctor to perform it, against the opposition of a local priest and Aixa's boyfriend. This is a great ensemble piece, with beautifully acted three-dimentional characters.

As 'Caracas' neared its conclusion I was planning on giving it 8 stars. Various characters who knew each other either very well, somewhat or barely were introduced and the intermingling of their stories were being advanced not only dramatically but also with a sense of tragedy; people caught in a vortex. Virtually none of these stories were clichéd and the value of that was that the unpredictability of real life was present in this fictional story. And then the final resolve. Oh my. As is often the case with movies that disappoint the question is asked, "What was the screenwriter thinking?" If one is to believe what is seen on screen then this is what the writer was thinking: In 'Caracas's' ending we have a strung out killer (he just killed his pregnant girlfriend in her hospital bed), in daylight, slightly wounding the doctor he mistakenly thought performed an abortion on her (so far so good actually). But then,for starters, in the crime- plagued city of Caracas, there is no armed security guards in the main city hospital. The killer stalks the doctor through various corridors of the hospital, following a blood trail and the resident doctor, familiar with the place, can't find a room to barricade himself in. Just before the killer opens a door and comes face to face with him the doctor pulls out a semi-automatic pistol (which he intentionally and recently bought for self-protection), cocks it and when the killer enters the room, gun held at his side, the doctor fails to shoot him. A nurse is then seen pushing a woman and her newborn on a gurney, seeing this dangerous situation and then pushes the gurney between the two men. Why would she intentionally walk between two distraught men holding guns? Then there's a melodramatic face-off with both men leveling their guns at each other. (And no, the gurney has already passed by so as not to distract the doctor.) (While it can be believed that the killer may want to die, there is and never was shown any such suicidal attitude by the doctor. Quite the contrary as a matter of fact.) Then the screen stays in black after the shots are fired......and that's the end of the movie. When unintentionally absurd endings take place in movies they are usually preceded by other absurdities. In the case of 'Caracas' a really fine movie went sliding down the drain because of its ending. Really too bad!

This film deserves to be mentioned with the recent Mexican films that have received such acclaim (some might disagree but I actually like it better than "Amores Perros"). As a bit of background, there are around 100 murders each weekend in Caracas. Power failures are also frequent in the city, which comes into play. There's more to the story than that, but it's good background to have. Music is also central to the story. That this is Balza's first film is amazing. Well worth seeing if you can find it.