There's a maddening, maddening scene in Secuestro Express in which a victim of a kidnapping ordeal is ordered to remove a substantially large amount of money from his bank account using his card, as the wrong-doers hold his female partner captive in a nearby jeep. Upon attaining the money, he's jumped by a third party thief; an individual whom hangs around the ATM machines, at whatever God-forsaken hour in the morning whilst no one is around, and jumps those removing hard cash from the machine. One of the kidnappers sees this and intervenes. It'll sound perverse, but it's an amusing situation; one of a number of gut wrenching and rather harrowing predicaments a number of characters find themselves in within Venezuelan born Jonathan Jakubowicz's film; a man painting a grim, glum and quite frightening picture of his home nation, indeed, his home city: the sort of place where the criminals try one over the criminals by targeting the weak in-between.
That city is Caracas, the capital of the aforementioned Venezuela, as a number of short and sharp voice-overs consistently remind us. The set up is brief; the plunging us into a predicament is close to immediate, while the results are eerily effective. Express Kidnapping, to give it its English title, sees a young couple in Carla (Maestro) and Martin (Leroux) swiped off of the street by a gang of equally young, but significantly less-better off hoods armed with guns; a 4x4; a taste for ransom money and, eventually, an equally alarming taste for the lone female in the vehicle. The immediate beginning actually revolves around the kidnappers, with each of their names popping up on screen and a fast and frenetic aesthetic by way of edits and camera work sort-of complimenting the short, sharp and rough voice-overs that provide whatever back-story they're given. If we're honest, we might assume the film to be about them at this point.
Jakubowicz demonstrates that he has an eye for particular styles that he knows complement particular passages of where we are in a film. His early style of hyper-kinetic and frothing mad camera complete with editing shoots all over the place before any audience member, indeed victim within the film, has any time to garner any sort of bearings. The early passage of events in the car shortly after the taking are brutal in their effectiveness. This is primarily, I think, because we, like the victims, are plunged into this predicament and share whatever confusion they do as we both come to terms with what's happened. The opening had gone to some length to introduce the kidnappers, only for the film to plunge us into the chaotic and 'flung-around' situation of the victims, thus we perceive things from their perspective and is an unexpected viewing position. The whole passage taps into a very primal fear linked to being in peril; held at ransom by an unknown force more powerful and larger in numbers than you as well as that sensation that automatically assuming whatever dreadful fate can happen, probably will.
But the film levels out. Then again, perhaps it's the style that levels out. The automatic assumption that a highly stylised, and thus 'accessible', film that falls into some sort of crime genre embraces the acts on screen and renders them 'sexy' or 'fun' or 'good to look at' is easy. But this film isn't here to exploit, and its calming down following the initial incident is welcome as people begin to talk to one another and procedures are supposedly carried out. That isn't to say the danger evaporates, because it doesn't, but the kidnapped leads come to realise their situation and a similar progression is occurring with the audience as our own opinions and realisations on the situation are unfolding at exactly the same time.
If we think of films that are either wildly kinetic in their delivery and overall feel or just carry that lush, good-looking sensibility from recent years, of which they might also be categorised as 'crime' films, Pierre Morel's 2008 film Taken might spring to mind. As also might one of Soderburgh's 'Ocean's' sequels – there may even be some that point to the first of that series. One of the very few films of this ilk from recent years that I thought pulled off this 'all over the place'; 'revenge and violence carries a certain "to be looked at-ness" appeal' without ever feeling exploitative was Tarantino's first Kill Bill volume; a film that utilised its female lead's chaotic and tragic circumstances to project real sense of anger as the film unfolded to whatever style and atmosphere Tarantino implemented on his text.
I think Express Kidnapping balances whatever political or social issues the director has with what he's studying with that trashy, pulpy, throw-away approach you feel he wants to additionally get across. Carla's journey isn't necessarily about her developing as a female character and becoming more and more hard bodied, but then again it doesn't minimise her nor relegate her to any position of the 'weakling'. Rather, it is her partner that looses his head and she herself comes to identify the sexually charged predicament, using that to her advantage. More immediately, the film is concerned with the state of the the nation and these goings on. The film's ending is deceptively upbeat, but Jakubowicz is telling us the only real way anything is ever going to get done is if the scum continue to stalk the other scum and wipe them out for us, 'us' being the more innocent Venezuelans as well as the government themselves.
Express Kidnapping doesn't exploit its subject matter for purposes of entertainment, while its shifts from a relaxed sense to a thoroughly frightening scenario throughout never feels mis-guided nor mis-judged. If more South American films can balance the 'accessibility' this film carries with a raw and social driven subject matter, I see nothing but good things for cinema from said part of the world.
That city is Caracas, the capital of the aforementioned Venezuela, as a number of short and sharp voice-overs consistently remind us. The set up is brief; the plunging us into a predicament is close to immediate, while the results are eerily effective. Express Kidnapping, to give it its English title, sees a young couple in Carla (Maestro) and Martin (Leroux) swiped off of the street by a gang of equally young, but significantly less-better off hoods armed with guns; a 4x4; a taste for ransom money and, eventually, an equally alarming taste for the lone female in the vehicle. The immediate beginning actually revolves around the kidnappers, with each of their names popping up on screen and a fast and frenetic aesthetic by way of edits and camera work sort-of complimenting the short, sharp and rough voice-overs that provide whatever back-story they're given. If we're honest, we might assume the film to be about them at this point.
Jakubowicz demonstrates that he has an eye for particular styles that he knows complement particular passages of where we are in a film. His early style of hyper-kinetic and frothing mad camera complete with editing shoots all over the place before any audience member, indeed victim within the film, has any time to garner any sort of bearings. The early passage of events in the car shortly after the taking are brutal in their effectiveness. This is primarily, I think, because we, like the victims, are plunged into this predicament and share whatever confusion they do as we both come to terms with what's happened. The opening had gone to some length to introduce the kidnappers, only for the film to plunge us into the chaotic and 'flung-around' situation of the victims, thus we perceive things from their perspective and is an unexpected viewing position. The whole passage taps into a very primal fear linked to being in peril; held at ransom by an unknown force more powerful and larger in numbers than you as well as that sensation that automatically assuming whatever dreadful fate can happen, probably will.
But the film levels out. Then again, perhaps it's the style that levels out. The automatic assumption that a highly stylised, and thus 'accessible', film that falls into some sort of crime genre embraces the acts on screen and renders them 'sexy' or 'fun' or 'good to look at' is easy. But this film isn't here to exploit, and its calming down following the initial incident is welcome as people begin to talk to one another and procedures are supposedly carried out. That isn't to say the danger evaporates, because it doesn't, but the kidnapped leads come to realise their situation and a similar progression is occurring with the audience as our own opinions and realisations on the situation are unfolding at exactly the same time.
If we think of films that are either wildly kinetic in their delivery and overall feel or just carry that lush, good-looking sensibility from recent years, of which they might also be categorised as 'crime' films, Pierre Morel's 2008 film Taken might spring to mind. As also might one of Soderburgh's 'Ocean's' sequels – there may even be some that point to the first of that series. One of the very few films of this ilk from recent years that I thought pulled off this 'all over the place'; 'revenge and violence carries a certain "to be looked at-ness" appeal' without ever feeling exploitative was Tarantino's first Kill Bill volume; a film that utilised its female lead's chaotic and tragic circumstances to project real sense of anger as the film unfolded to whatever style and atmosphere Tarantino implemented on his text.
I think Express Kidnapping balances whatever political or social issues the director has with what he's studying with that trashy, pulpy, throw-away approach you feel he wants to additionally get across. Carla's journey isn't necessarily about her developing as a female character and becoming more and more hard bodied, but then again it doesn't minimise her nor relegate her to any position of the 'weakling'. Rather, it is her partner that looses his head and she herself comes to identify the sexually charged predicament, using that to her advantage. More immediately, the film is concerned with the state of the the nation and these goings on. The film's ending is deceptively upbeat, but Jakubowicz is telling us the only real way anything is ever going to get done is if the scum continue to stalk the other scum and wipe them out for us, 'us' being the more innocent Venezuelans as well as the government themselves.
Express Kidnapping doesn't exploit its subject matter for purposes of entertainment, while its shifts from a relaxed sense to a thoroughly frightening scenario throughout never feels mis-guided nor mis-judged. If more South American films can balance the 'accessibility' this film carries with a raw and social driven subject matter, I see nothing but good things for cinema from said part of the world.