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Cronicas

2005, Movie, R, 98 mins

Cronicas: Review

CRONICAS
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Inspired by Colombian killer Luis Alfredo Garavito's grisly six-year reign of terror, Ecuadorian filmmaker Sebastian Cordero's thriller revolves around a Miami-based TV reporter who tries to manipulate a breaking story involving a serial child-killer only to find he's not the one pulling the strings. On-air reporter Manolo Bonilla (John Leguizamo, in his first Spanish-language role), producer Marisa Iturralde (Leonor Watling) and cameraman Ivan Suarez (Jose Maria Yazpik) all work for the American Spanish-language tabloid-TV show "One Hour with the Truth," hosted by Marisa's husband, Victor Hugo Puente (Alfred Molina). While on location in Ecuador, where three children have been murdered by the notorious "Beast of Babahoyo," they inadvertently capture a scene of brutal mob violence. Following one victim's funeral, local religious-articles salesman Vinicio Cepeda (Damian Alcazar), accidentally runs down the dead child's twin brother and, in full view of his pregnant wife (Gloria Leiton) and small son (Luiggi Pulla), is dragged from his car, beaten, doused with gasoline and set on fire. The camera crew's presence helps save his life, but he's thrown into the same overcrowded, laxly supervised local jail as the dead boys' vengeful father (Henry Layana). Hoping that gaining public sympathy might get him out, Vinicio proposes a deal: If Manolo will do a story about his unjust persecution, he'll share what he learned from a strange hitchhiker with a troubled soul, a man Vinicio intimates is the Beast. As proof, Vinicio offers a tidbit about the mass grave the police have recently finished excavating: The hitchhiker told him all about it, he says, and the police have missed the body of a little girl. Vinicio's tip proves right, and Manolo, assuming the Beast is Vinicio himself, sees an opportunity to advance his career by eliciting an on-camera confession. Since Cordero establishes in the first scene that Vinicio is indeed guilty, he is clearly less interested in standard-issue psycho-killer thrills than in exploring the relationship between a sensation-hungry public and the journalists who supply atrocity stories. Like the reporter in the similar MEAN SEASON (1985), Manolo must eventually confront the growing divide between his conscience and his ambitions, but what distinguishes Cordero's film is his use of location. Misery hangs over muddy, rain-soaked Babahoyo like a suffocating fog, and Vinicio's impoverished neighborhood — a cluster of shacks perched on stilts over a lake and connected by ramshackle wooden bridges — is a vivid image of mundane life one shock away from collapse. (In English and Spanish, with English subtitles.) leave a comment --Maitland McDonagh
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Memorias, Cronicas E Declaracoes de Amor
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Enciende una luz/ Turn on a Light: Cronicas y lecciones de mi vida y ministerio/ Chronicles and Lessons of my Life and Ministry (Spanish Edition)
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