This documentary shows the lives of three young Colombians living in a hillside suburb of Medellin called La Sierra.
This film follows Edison, Cielo and Jesus.
Edison is a lothario who leads a paramilitary gang who has six children from six different women.
Cielo is a teenaged widow whose boyfriend is a jailed paramilitary member and who considers prostitution to get by.
And Jesus is a young man with a hand missing because of a grenade-making mishap. He has a morbid fascination with death and likes to do drugs, apparently mostly cocaine.
“La Sierra” strips away the detached observation of typical documentaries and allows its subjects the time they need to express themselves, their deepest desires and fears.
This nihilism on the part of Jesus is one of the film’s more disturbing aspects.
And, despite the fact that the documentary is about civil war in Colombia, this film is not political. It stays true to the idea of revealing the humanity involved.
La Sierra is a location beset by government forces, leftist rebels and paramilitary groups.
The audience does not see much of the first two and that’s okay. The film does not pretend to tell the story from all angles – it settles on life in La Sierra and shows the very human side of conflict.
One surprising thing to come from the documentary is a sense of hope in the people’s hearts, despite what has happened to them and their friends and families.
“La Sierra” is available on DVD.
Murphy can be reached at: [email protected]
