Dias de Santiago

Santiago, an intense 23-year old young man trained for nothing but fighting, finds himself back in normal life after service in the army. His wife is at the point of leaving him, his family want to keep him at a distance. With a large chip on his shoulder, he is frustrated in his desires to get an education while his old comrades try to persuade him to join them in their dream of robbing banks. Abandoned by his wife, he finally and hesitantly begins to move towards a new relationship, but things spin wildly out of control when his violent brother’s girl-friend starts making seductive overtures and pleads with him to kill her lover. It seems there is no escape from the cycle of violence once it has begun, in spite of his best intentions.Skilfully interweaving black and white and colour footage in a way that both heightens the film’s realism and the sense of despair and frustration of his protagonist, this young Peruvian director has created a distinctive portrait of life in Lima. He makes very palpable the way the young man’s training has circumscribed his life, made him the victim of assumptions in the reactions of others, in spite of the fact that his army career has been in their service. A close and following camera, tight compositions and an intermittent voice-over positions the audience close to our hero and the frustration, anger and tragedy of the situation is brought vividly to life. [S.F.]