It is Quite interesting how foreign festivals consistently love seeing people living in misery and give honors to Asian films depicting poverty and crime: from Mike de leon "Aliwan Paradise" to Lamberto V. Avellana's "Anak Dalita" to Lino Brocka's "Insiang" to Brillante Mendoza's "Kinatay" to Hirokazu Koreeda's "Shoplifters" and to Joon-ho's "Parasite" as the meandering camera is Orientalizing. But here is Vampires Of Poverty (Agarrando Pueblo), a parody movie that called out filmmakers exploiting poverty in Latin America in the 70s, sort of a mock-docu on the practice of pornomiseria (poverty porn) to garner film festival acclaim with CS Lewis "Culture of Poverty" being an underlying element to the entire plot. A pivotal, iconic work of Colombian indie cinema, timeless and must-see manifesto on misery porn by Carlos Mayolo & Luis Ospina who was part of Cali Group influenced by Tercer Cine movement at vanguard of left-wing filmmaking in Latin America.
3 Reviews
Reality on Colombian cinema even today
elderesek29 August 2008
This short film reflects a satirical vision on how the so-called master film-makers in Colombia are just a bunch on fools whose ambition goes beyond a real narrative but leading to black propaganda of the country.
Desperated looking for poverty where there's not too much, a couple of film directors try to make a documentary on homeless, ignorant, mindless people, giving themselves to the extreme option of contracting actors to make a fake poor family when failed to capture that inexistent reality.
It's curious to note that even today the same tendency is still alive on some Colombian directors (but today on themes such as guerrilla, violence, kidnapping, etcetera), giving this masterpiece a renewal concept.
Desperated looking for poverty where there's not too much, a couple of film directors try to make a documentary on homeless, ignorant, mindless people, giving themselves to the extreme option of contracting actors to make a fake poor family when failed to capture that inexistent reality.
It's curious to note that even today the same tendency is still alive on some Colombian directors (but today on themes such as guerrilla, violence, kidnapping, etcetera), giving this masterpiece a renewal concept.
Interesting idea and execution, certainly way ahead of its time
Horst_In_Translation16 December 2017
Warning: Spoilers
"Agarrando pueblo" or "The Vampires of Poverty" is a Colombian documentary from 1977, so this one has its 40th anniversary this year. It runs for a bit under half an hour only and was written and directed by the late Carlos Mayolo. But is it really a documentary? Nope. It is a comedy movie like an old short version of Tropic Thunder that shows us how filmmakers exploit poverty in certain countries to make pseudo-important films about the people and living conditions there while staging and scripting their documentaries from start to finish. The make-believe of authenticity if you want to say so. It's a subject that is also still more than partially true today, which shows how far ahead of their time Majolo and his crue were back then. Still it may be slightly overrated here on imdb. 5 minutes less could have been okay and the switching between b&w and color felt also a bit random and annoying at times. Nonetheless the good certainly prevails here. This was a really interesting project that offers depth, contemporary relevance (especially now in the age of refugees/immigration) and comedy and all three of these are something that you don't really find that frequently in movies, especially short movies. This is a work that's certainly not for everybody. But if you end opening yourself to it, then you will have a pretty good time watching. A thumbs-up for this one here. I recommend checking it out.
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