Friday 22 March 2013

¡Viva! 2013: Pescador Review


This Equador-Columbia film is a fun comedy about a poor fisherman who discovers a wad of cocaine washed up on his village beach. 




Pescador (Fisherman) is a slick, entertaining Latin American road movie from award-winning filmmaker Sebastian Corder, with a drugs deal at its centre. The setting is a tiny, poor fishing village in Equador. Blanquito (“Whitey”) is a down on his luck fisherman who lives in a small shack with his mother, seems to have lost the respect of those around him, and is undesirable to the opposite sex. We are introduced to him lagging behind his co-workers one morning, being threatened the sack by his boss if he is late once more.

His luck is seemingly about to change when his group come across boxes of cocaine that have been washed up on the beach. After turning a blind eye to the demands of the police, the fishermen sell the drugs back to the cartel for $5000 dollars a brick and a village celebration is soon underway. Blanquito has loftier ideas however. He dreams of self improvement, tracking down his long lost father and of building a new life with his drug money. After delivering groceries one morning to a lavish holiday home he takes a shine to the beautiful inhabitant Lorna, a Colombian single mother and the girlfriend of affluent city businessman Elias (Marcelo Aguirre). Initially he is ignored of course, but once she hears of his plan she claims she can find a buyer in nearby city Guayaquil, and the two team up.

Crespo’s comic performance is pleasingly downplayed and his Blanquito gullible, naive and increasingly likeable. He is consistently generous and trustworthy and as a viewer we are rooting for him. Sympathy is evoked when events turn disastrously wrong. Easily convinced when his mother tells him his father is a local governor, he touchingly buys a suit and new shoes especially for the occasion and turns up with a chauffeured driven car to appear impressive.  Another time, he approaches a prostitute and her pimp, offering to take them out and pay for everything. He wakes up in a scummy motel with no wallet.

Although it admittedly achieves nothing new, Pescador is stylish and enjoyable. The soundtrack is lively and contemporary, and certain elements of the film are vaguely reminiscent of Alfonso Cuaron’s Y Tu Mama Tambien,which can only be a good thing.

3/5

 This review was written for Front Row Reviews by Sarah Holland in connection with the Cornerhouse/ The original review can be found here

No comments:

Post a Comment