Two Colombian men attempt to smuggle cocaine up the Pacific. That's the slim, basic trajectory of director Josef Kubota Wladyka's first feature, "Manos Sucias," and it rarely ventures beyond those restrictions. But that very minimalism gives its drama a personal quality steeped in the desperation of its lower class anti-heroes. Shot on location in and around Buenaventura, the movie has a frantic, gritty energy attuned to its characters' frustrations—not unlike the fiery sentiments found in the most polemical output of Spike Lee, who serves as an executive producer. Even so, Wladyka's debut has a more claustrophobic feel than anything in Lee's oeuvre; running just under 75 minutes, it's a fierce snapshot of reckless behavior enacted by helpless men. At its center is Delio (Cristian James Abvincula), a pouty young black man eager to leave "that fucking construction job" and find a better life for his wife and infant child. In an early scene,...
- 4/27/2014
- by Eric Kohn
- Indiewire
Manos Sucias
Directed by Josef Kubota Wladyka
Colombia and USA, 2014
Jacobo (Jarlin Javier Martinez), a world-hardened but innocent fisherman, and naïve, 19 year-old Delio (Cristian James Abvincula) set out on a dangerous drug mission on the coast of Colombia in Josef Kubota Wladyka’s directorial debut. This film is reminiscent of the recent La Jaula de Oro: young lives searching for escape, caught amidst a harrowing circle of inevitable violence and peril. Wladyka shoots entirely on-location and it shows. There’s a real sense of place here, made more authentic by small touches: children jumping from waterside bungalows into the bay as a boat approaches; makeshift motorcycle-driven railroad carts, their wheels precariously hugging the thin strips of train-track metal; freestyling teenagers on the street.
Like Jacobo and Delio, Wladyka and cinematographer Alan Blanco’s camera moves frequently forward. It plows through choppy waters, creeps across calm marshes, hurtles on railroad tracks and into tunnels,...
Directed by Josef Kubota Wladyka
Colombia and USA, 2014
Jacobo (Jarlin Javier Martinez), a world-hardened but innocent fisherman, and naïve, 19 year-old Delio (Cristian James Abvincula) set out on a dangerous drug mission on the coast of Colombia in Josef Kubota Wladyka’s directorial debut. This film is reminiscent of the recent La Jaula de Oro: young lives searching for escape, caught amidst a harrowing circle of inevitable violence and peril. Wladyka shoots entirely on-location and it shows. There’s a real sense of place here, made more authentic by small touches: children jumping from waterside bungalows into the bay as a boat approaches; makeshift motorcycle-driven railroad carts, their wheels precariously hugging the thin strips of train-track metal; freestyling teenagers on the street.
Like Jacobo and Delio, Wladyka and cinematographer Alan Blanco’s camera moves frequently forward. It plows through choppy waters, creeps across calm marshes, hurtles on railroad tracks and into tunnels,...
- 4/25/2014
- by Neal Dhand
- SoundOnSight
Manos Sucias
Directed by Josef Wladyka
Colombia, 2014
It’s not hard to see why the great Spike Lee would want to get his hands on the drug-trafficking dramatic thriller Manos Sucias. It’s exceptionally made and extraordinarily tense. It also profiles a culture that’s both rarely depicted in art and quite underserved in real life. Lee isn’t this film’s director, though. That title, improbably, belongs to rookie filmmaker Josef Wladyka, whose voice is shockingly established for someone as green as he is.
The film introduces us to the drug trade that starts out of the ironically named Colombian port city of Buenaventura (translation: “good luck”). Two young men, Jacobo (Jarlin Javier Martinez) and Delio (Cristian James Abvincula), embark on a deal that will take them into the sometimes treacherous waters off the coast. The former has done this many times, but he wants out. The latter, on the other hand,...
Directed by Josef Wladyka
Colombia, 2014
It’s not hard to see why the great Spike Lee would want to get his hands on the drug-trafficking dramatic thriller Manos Sucias. It’s exceptionally made and extraordinarily tense. It also profiles a culture that’s both rarely depicted in art and quite underserved in real life. Lee isn’t this film’s director, though. That title, improbably, belongs to rookie filmmaker Josef Wladyka, whose voice is shockingly established for someone as green as he is.
The film introduces us to the drug trade that starts out of the ironically named Colombian port city of Buenaventura (translation: “good luck”). Two young men, Jacobo (Jarlin Javier Martinez) and Delio (Cristian James Abvincula), embark on a deal that will take them into the sometimes treacherous waters off the coast. The former has done this many times, but he wants out. The latter, on the other hand,...
- 4/22/2014
- by John Gilpatrick
- SoundOnSight
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