Film reviews: At Vancouver Latin American Film Festival, a Colombian town in search of a TV and pink-punk Chilean empowerment
Quick takes on La Suprema and Outsider Girls, two energized offerings at the upcoming ode to new cinema
Outsider Girls
La Suprema
Vancouver Latin American Film Festival takes place from September 5 to 15 at SFU Woodward’s, The Cinematheque, and Cineworks
La Suprema
September 5 at 7 pm at SFU Woodward’s, with director Felipe Holguín Caro in attendance
Sitting in the humid forest, the Colombian village of La Suprema is so tiny that it doesn’t exist on a map. When Laureana’s absent uncle Oscar gets a shot at a world boxing championship title, fighting a Venezuelan, it prompts an effort by proud locals, led by the boxer’s spirited niece, to purchase a TV in the nearest city of Cartagena. Lack of funds is one of their problems, but even worse, La Suprema doesn’t even have electricity. This feel good festival opener is light on the surface—really, one of its greatest pleasures is the sun-drenched photography—but it also has some interesting things to say, very casually, about the trap of modernity (and also class, race, and tradition.) Among La Suprema’s domino-playing men and perpetually busy women, who wash their clothes and dishes in the river, the wound of being officially nonexistent is presumed to be remedied by the coming of the magical screen. It doesn’t quite play out that way, but the mishaps and hitches en route are plenty fun—including a stint in city jail for young Laureana and her uncle’s principled ex-trainer Efraim, a reluctant partner in the caper. Beneath the end credits, the cast performs a gorgeous song about mud houses, peace, and “the mango sun”. It might be a little utopian, but it captures everything this lovely movie is really about. AM
Outsider Girls
September 7 at 6:15 pm at September 14 at 8:15 pm at the Cinematheque
Harsh reality comes crashing in on the laidback vibes of college-age Santiago besties Rafaela and Gabriela, who inhabit a heightened world of pink faux-fur-filled bedrooms, french fries, glitter nails, punk-rock posters, and drunken parties. In this irreverent and coolly stylized new feature from Chilean director Alexandra Hyland, “Rafa” faces an unwanted pregnancy. And so the pair team up for a string of absurd jobs—dressing as pizzas to hand out coupons, applying abstract facepaint at kids’ birthday parties, cleaning upscale apartments with drawers full of dildos—to raise the money for an illegal abortion pill. It’s all so oddball-funny and chaotic, and effortless actors Nicole Sazo and Alicia Rodriguez make their characters such likable misfits, that you might not even realize at first how seriously Hyland is taking on a public-health system. In Chile, a traditionally Catholic country, abortion is illegal, except in three circumstances: nonviable pregnancies, rape, or risks to a mother's life. So while providing a graphic step-by-step how-to (not just on getting an illegal abortion but on getting knocked up, actually), Hyland never glosses over the difficulty of Rafaela’s situation. There’s laughter, tears, and blood—not to mention an absolutely banging neoperreo soundtrack showcasing a new generation of badass femme punk-rap-reggaeton artists who are as exciting and unapologetic as this young Chilean director. JS 
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