El colombian dream (2005) Online

This movie is one of the few, if not the only Colombian production that I can feel proud of, it tells a story close to our culture and our collective personality in a psychedelic and frenetic tone that reminds us of Fernando Meirelles's "Cidade De Deus".The movie is filled with creative film-making and literary reflections, and the various outcomes are usually pumped with an irony that makes it amazingly realistic, and often put that slightly sadistic smile on your face. the wit and crudity of Aljure in representing the particular things that makes us Colombians is overwhelming,and is truly revealing at some times.Don't let other comments bump you out, this really is one of the most amazing films I have ever seen.

Just watched it again, and I felt really disappointed with myself... I compared this at once to the majestic direction of 'Confesion a Laura' and 'Ilona llega con la lluvia', but NO WAY! 'El Colombian Dream' isn't as brilliant as I thought two years ago, it is actually a pointless use of thousands of camera angles/movements alongside a freaky pointless dumb multistory. The script has tons of pseudointellectual phrases and the direction leads people to get sick.

What have I learned? 1) Not to call "brilliant" to every unusual movie I see. 2) Not to call "brilliant" nowadays to something I haven't seen in years. 3) Not to re-watch a movie I liked when I was younger. It may damage its impression in me.

Soooo NOT "another attempt to exploit the cliché of what Colombia is not." I have seen Colombian movies, and most of them do fit perfectly into that description, but this movie is different. It shows a new format in Colombian films, the story is fresh even though it does deal with drugs, and the conflicts of the characters are perfectly plotted and put together into a delightful, artistic movie. Don't think "Mary full of grace" is all Colombia has to offer. This movie is full of wit, and was cleverly written and filmed. One of my top ten. Oh, and if you're into Colombian movies, you have to watch "La Estrategia del Caracol." That's a classic and is also very, very good.

Aljure provided a fresh look at Colombian cinema on "La Gente de la Universal", but it is on this masterpiece that he exploits all that his "cinephilia" has done to him over the years. He takes on a video-clip rhythm and shoots on film allowing a colorful yet moonlit cinema that goes on with the drug-related parody and gloomily joyful characters in which not one is secondary. It's lighting and editing contrast any other Colombian film and it's sweet artistic joy and euphoria carry it's audience through a ride of ecstasy just like the "pepas" of the movie carry it's characters. "El Colombian Dream" has arrived and we can only celebrate along with it.

Colombian dream is probably the best Colombian movie ever done, especially Felipe Aljure's wonderful direction and very original screenplay makes this movie a must if you want to know about new styles and concepts about Colombian movie. Since Maria Full of Grace which was released in 2003 but being half Colombian half American I haven't seen a so well done Colombian story. This movie is far apart of the way other directors tell a story about drugs and social problems that are part of the costumbrism and black movie style made in Colombia's cinematography but which is also part of Colombia's reality. Even though the young leading actors still have a lot to learn the movie has extraordinary supporting actors and also very good film editing and sound editing.

I'm not complaining or anything. sometimes i love to eat a bunch of chocolate, until i feel sick. a friend of mine referred to this movie this way, and i just felt he completely hit the point. It has like a thousand protagonists, and a thousand story-lines and uses a thousand of cinematographic tools... and in the end, there is not a protagonist nor a storyline nor a visual language. just like eating too much chocolate, still you won't regret about doing so. Must see... i guess not like it's for everybody. Characters, through a lot, are well developed, and kind on funny. the only real complain i have about this movie is that the whole baby thing, doesn't make sense at all... you'll see why.

With El Colombian Dream, Felipe Aljure has once again been able to break paradigms as he has demonstrated that it is possible to produce and direct Colombian cinema on a par with any internationally produced film. Tarantino's, Jean-Pierre Jeunet's (Amelie) and the influence of other well-known directors are somehow present in this movie. If you want to see a cruel, black-humored critique of a dreadful aspect of Colombian society, watch this movie. Worth mentioning as well are the actors and actresses that make the cast of the film, virtually unknown in Colombia, but with a great potential to become Colombia's next generation of exportable talent. Trivia fact: the twins were chosen for the six-fingered foot of one of them.

This movie is a rare gem. All of the shots are completely hyper-kinetic, which eliminates the possibility of emphasis or accent on any of the films (convoluted and yet, ironically predictable) events. It works out as a collection of tenuously related 2 minute music videos in which character development and plot are almost non existent. The director, who is a very good director, as he showed in his last film "La gente de la Universal", decide to show of his 12 plus years of producing TV commercials in detriment of any sort of narrative criteria. Its overlong, overwritten and I have no idea what the deal is with having an aborted child narrating it. Its Fax meaning at its best, a whole mess of sound and fury signifying nothing.

Minor spoilers in this comment.

El Colombian Dream is an awful boring movie that does not deserve to be watched at all. It started out good with an original narrative, good dialogs and good use of cameras and art direction, but that's about every good thing this movie has to offer. The movie takes one whole hour to set its plot (that is – a whole hour for the drug dealers to loose their drug and our "heroes" to get a hold of it), and only then, the actual story begins. That first hour doesn't add anything decisive to the story nor explores characters in a fascinating way.

Characters are another thing that makes this movie so tedious. There is not one character that makes a single conscious choice. And that's what supports the storytelling – the fact that characters keep on making the wrong choices and so the plot can keep on getting complicated. It's really a sitcom-structure that turns out pathetic for a two hour fifteen minutes movie, while it also transforms characters in nothing but cartoon like clichés.

Now – is it fair for a movie to rely entirely on character's lies that need to be supported to maintain its storytelling? It certainly is not. I.e. if El Duende wanted to kill his boos why not just grab a gun and shoot him, instead of putting together such a complicated and uncertain plan.

At another point of the movie the narrator says that 'it suck's to born in a country that turns poets into killers' (or something to that effect), and one can't help to wonder if it's really the country's fault. This country sucks in many ways – that's a fact, just as every country in the world sucks in one or another way (but to be truthful, this country also many great things – just as every other country) but is it fair to blame it on the country for the fact that a silly immature cartoon like character ends up in jail? Not to mention that after he realized that he wasn't cut out to be a part of that business he had plenty of time and chances to get out of it. I believe it would be fairly to blame it on stupid writing that made the character take one wrong stupid choice after the other.

Another thing that troubles me is the fact that the movie turns around a load of ecstasy like pills when that's exactly the one drug that Colombia is not known to be a quality producer. Was it not lees complicated (and more realistic) to make it a load of cocaine? Where the movie makers contaminated by the "realismo mágico" (magic realism) that spreads on almost every piece of Colombian literature and art craft? Did they wanted to make it an original out-of-this-world story? Who knows. The fact is that it turns out ridiculous.

If they wanted to shoot yet another Colombian made drug mafia movie, there are so many real life stories published out there, which happens to be better and much more fascinating than this one, that any of them would have made up a better scrip.

On an aside note – there is a kind of unwritten rule where we (colombians) must embrace and support the movies made in our country, just for the fact that movie making is an almost impossible task in Colombia. But the truth is that one cannot embrace and support such a bad movie as this one.

One last word: don't watch it.

Whenever a film maker goes short of ideas about Colombia, he resorts to the drug theme. This is a permanent cliché in the movie industry and it is easy to forgive if it is the sloppy work of an outsider. But when a Colombian director needs to go to these extremes of bad taste to broadcast (once again) the false notion that his country is a narcotics paradise, you can only feel sorry for him. What a narrow mind and what a scarce imagination.

I only hope that the next time someone uses the name of our country in the title of a film or any artistic work, it be with the purpose of honoring it and not as a commercial gimmick. And yes, that it be of any artistic value.

The Director longs for Colombian cinema to be taken seriously outside of Colombia. This will not be the film to accomplish that goal. The film is basically another story about the tragedy of the drug trade, this time in a hyper-frenetic magical realism style. One of the reasons this film will have difficulty being accepted outside of the Spanish-speaking world is that it will be virtually impossible to create subtitles. This might not be an issue for a film "purist" but from a practical point of view if you don't speak Spanish the film probably looks like a sick cartoon. Obviously the director has talent and creativity but it needs to channeled a little better.

This is a Terrible movie, in almost every aspect, murky cinematography, sloppy special effects, and cheap sets, the argument it's full of gaps, flat, slow and predictable, and the direction it's Kind of ED WOOD in a LSD trip... It's a Colombian movie, and one of the main lines is: It's better to born in Colombia than be dead....Great, it's also very patriot.

It's Just another movie about Colombians and drugs...from a very drugged point of view.

125 lost minutes in my life, and 125 millions of dead brain cells... don't waste your time, nor your brain by watching this...