Not all the beasts have seven heads, ten horns, and remain sheltered in the shadows. Jaime Osorio, an unflinching and provocative mind, releases his most disturbing and risky film to date, a film that acts as a hopeful reminder to his country, announcing that with very little money, as is usual in Colombia in relation to cinema, but with fascinating vehemence and respect for art, either newcomer or master filmmakers can go even further from what they imagine.
According to the levels of making movies in Colombia, the flick surprises pleasantly. Director and artistic team distance the story of their comfort zone to implant it in a humid and sinister scenario similar to the narrative climate, sequences shot at the Chingaza Natural Park— in record time —with the assistance of "Embrace of the Serpent" director of photography, David Gallego. Here, the locations, emphasizing the moor, become vital organs by means of their well-achieved restlessness, obscure nature and perplexity. As far as the scenes focused on the characters, they took my desperation to unimaginable limits with the constant and infernal shaky camera, generally, in fragments where the character moves along a specific area. The camera literally shakes to the point of losing the focus of attention of the scene completely. It's understandable that he wanted to generate a kind of proximity and tribulation to symbolize the fickle mood of the character, however, it exudes little fineness and elegance in the process of achieving this difficult effect. Nevertheless, when the camera remains static focusing something or someone is where, truly, its most dignified visual glory can be appreciated, either in the scarlet breath springing from the flames that destroy the flora, the musings of a man who is seeing himself in the mirror undaunted and disgusted of what he sees and feels, the insertion of a body into icy waters; such moments are as highly commendable as powerful, making the feature film expand its horizons. Cold and shady colors are predominant in situations led by isolation and dejection, also, red and black colors are elegantly blended to capture the inner struggle of Marcos, the awakening and consequent doping of that beast with seven heads. By virtue of the national cinema it is not very common to contemplate the use of digital effects, it's worthy to congratulate the editing work on the images of fundamental importance for the plot, which, obviously, could not be carried out through the old school techniques, Little by little, we joined the today forward-looking methods, without marginalizing that touch that inherently provided a good story, a creative director, and gifted actors. One of the boxes of surprises turns out to be the sound section, which conceives an outstanding soundtrack that is nourished by resonances, screams, and melodies with stringed instruments in order to embellish the delicious thrilling images, which, by themselves, already freezing us. There is nothing more to say that Camilo Sanabria has composed one of the best Colombian soundtracks that I have heard nowadays, although, we have to accept it, he does not have too much competition.
From the beginning, the plot sustains on the shoulders of Alexander Betancur, an actor who minimizes any way of phonic communication to concentrate his acting strength in gestures, looks and bodily reactions of an austere, glum and inscrutable forest ranger. As his fellow performers, there are times when they fall into the laughable overacting or, on the contrary, they feel too crude and inexpressive with quotes that are terribly paraphrased, but, The leading actor is the only one who comes out well from this harsh interpretive journey, by the perfect role to reach a wider signal on the radar of talents, hopefully, he'll get what he deserves. Andres Castañeda and Valentina Gómez are part of the limited cast as the couple of biologists, the first performer, uninformed and relaxed, executes his role well enough to be a TV actor, however, Valentina, who plays Camila, never fulfills her challenging role fully, it's not possible to establish a connection that by law must be set up with characters, in addition to this, she becomes expressionless and unable to withstand so hard dramatic scenes.
Considered as the second feature film Jaime Osorio Marquez directs and writes at the same time, the work after his opera prima goes beyond it, "Siete Cabezas" is an important and commendable progress, in every sense of the word, both for the filmography of the filmmaker as country's. Although it keeps enough originality and remains firm and strong within the psychological thriller genre, the most applauded attribute of this non-English speaking motion picture is its risky personality, breaks and disrupts any taboo in Latin American cinema, displaying shootings, rapes, and murders with a fixed-camera position, not camouflaging absolutely nothing of the intense uncertainty the story itself proposes, in the same way, The nature of its origin receives an added value, manufactured in my country, Despite it won't show off huge sums of money at box office, will g the respect and meaning of young visionaries, like me, who believe in the potential of his land for cinema or any kind of art. Sometimes, Colombian cinema isn't synonymous with mediocrity and boredom, it's underlying synonym of unused potential and argumentative complexity.
