Yo soy otro (2008) User Reviews

A Caleñan production which fails to turn some interesting ideas into a dramatic whole.

[neal-alexander · 6/10 · 14 September 2008]

First, conflict as a disease vector. This does happen with, for example, leishmaniasis, as the various armed groups move through the country. But why invent a disease called lithomiasis and then say repeatedly that it's similar to leishmaniasis? Our protagonist comes down with the disease, is cured, relapses, till by the end it seems little more than a nuisance rash.

Second, how do the viciously opposed factions exist within a society which also sustains a post-industrial sector with software companies such as our protagonist's employers? It turns out that lithomiasis clones its sufferers and turns one into a guerrilla, another into a paramilitary, and so on. Hence the protagonist confronts his paramilitary doppelganger, but the scene achieves nothing. The other selves don't emerge from aspects of the original protagonist and their interactions are shallow.

I was at a screening with Q&A with the director in which he was happy to say that he'd been criticized both for being a fascist and an extreme leftist. What I missed in the film was any expression of what he _does_ want.

Finally, there's a lot of stock footage from Colombia and the Twin Towers attacks whose appearance isn't really justified by what the film has to say.

Yo soy otro

[torregroza · 24 October 2008]

This movie was made between June and July of 2005 in mini DVD format. The budget was limited to 900 thousand dollars(very inexpensive for north American standards), produced by Alina Hleap it takes place in Cali, Colombia and it shows us the seemingly normal life of Jose Gonzalez who discovers one day the signs of a deadly disease in his body.

At this point he decides to kill himself since this skin virus has no way to be avoided or controlled, killing himself or trying to is Jose's least problem since soon enough a bombing in the nearby vicinity thwarts his intent of committing suicide and makes him think his disease and the bombing is linked to the sudden appearance of replicas of his own persona.

Spoiler Warning?

[wmburke-2 · 10/10 · 18 August 2009]

"The fire is not on the roof, but in the minds of men" --Fyodor Dostoyevsky, "The Possessed"

Compassion - not communitarian-ism... is what builds self-sustaining communities.

I suspect producer Alina Hleap might have observed that, and learned a lesson or two on the subject, during her time as an exchange student in the American Heartland.

There are some lessons that bear repeating; and certainly the message of this film, that the nihilistic will to power destroys not only one's self, but often those you love in the process, is one of them.

You go girl!