Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #59139 in DVD
• Released on: 2002-03-26
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Color, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English, Spanish
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 100 minutes

From The New Yorker
A Colombian writer returns to his native Medellín to mourn his lost youth and, while he's at it, pick up a new one. That, more or less, is the tale that Barbet Schroeder's new movie has to tell. Schroeder has made some spicy pictures in his time, but this one feels lacklustre by comparison, and the two main performers-Anderson Ballesteros as the hustler and German Jaramillo as his aging mentor-tend to drift through their scenes, trying not to notice the hellfire around them. Whether they are genuinely ground down by the woes of the world or simply exhausted by years of casual sex is hard to work out; to be fair, few directors could make a film about moral anesthesia without sinking into glumness, and Schroeder does a pretty good job of insuring that no one in the audience will book a Colombian vacation in the near future. In Spanish. -Anthony Lane
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Where Death is accepted as a way of Life
Barbet Schroeder has directed some fine films: "Reversal of Fortune" is one and some not so good films: "Single White Female." All his films have shown Schoeder to be interesting at least and profound and vibrant at best. In his "Out Lady of the Assassins," Schroeder returns to the city of his youth, Medellin, Colombia after a very long absence. Schroeder shares this homecoming with the lead in this film, Fernando played by German Jaramillo who is shocked and revolted yet attracted to the city of his birth. You get the feeling that Fernando, weary with life and too many bad love affairs, has come home to die. We are all taught as children to revere life but Fernando has stepped back into a world where life is not held at a premium and people are gunned down in the streets by roving gangs of young men and boys whose philosophy is "kill first...or be killed." The tone of this movie reminded me very much of Francis Ford Coppola's in "Apocalypse Now" in which we view a world out of kilter; a world gone crazy. Fernando, a gay writer in his 50's meets a young man at a party, Alexis (Anderson Ballesteros) who looks to be 15 or 16 and they are drawn to each other and eventually fall in love. The usual route in this type of affair would have one using the other in one way or another. But Schoeder is too shrewd for that and Fernando and Alexis fall in love without hang-ups or regret. This film is also one of contradictions: Fernando, a unrepentant critic of the Catholic church yearns to see the beautiful gothic cathedrals of his youth. And longing to see the house and neighborhood in which he grew up he finds that his parents and relatives have been killed or died and that his neigborhood has been flattened by bombs and gunfire. "Our Lady of the Assassins" was shot in the same guerrilla-style look as was "Amores Perros," which gives the film a grainy newsreel look that enhances the world-gone-crazy tone of the movie. What makes this film such a sobering and astringent experience is the realization that Schoeder has exaggerated very little here and that the world of Medillin, Colombia is very much as he portrays it. A Major achivement.

The purgatory to which we may be headed
Barbet Schroeder has given us a rare insight into what the future may hold should we continue on the course of senseless brutality we witness in the Media daily now. OUR LADY OF THE ASSASSINS is a terrifyingly realistic account of the world gone mad, of the use of the gun as the immediate stimulus response solution for opposing opinions/views/misunderstandings. The writer who is the main character seems to be time-warping into the future of what might eventually consume us. The terror is in the reportage manner in which this film is delivered. Beautiful young boys exist by making their bodies available to adults who have money or power or who afford food and protection. This is not a film about male hustlers: the relationships between our main character and his young men are full of warmth and tenderness, if edged by the acerbic razor of street rules of survival by the gun. The visual and poetic references to the cathedrals of this Colombian town under moral siege are even more poignant in these days of the Catholic church's dealing with its own demons. This beautifully made film is disturbing, but somehow it is not depressing because the need and fulfilment of love between two characters no matter how disparate rings loudly throughout. A major movie.

Shroeder's Best
This is, by far, Barbet Shroeder's best effort. Perhaps his familiarity with the language, the country and its people themselves are contributing factors although Shroeder (Playboy August 2001) tells of the many problems and dangers he encountered while filming in Medellin.

I have not yet read Fernando Vallejo's novel, on which the film is based, nor have I visited Columbia so I can deal with Shroeder's work at face value only. Still I was able to appreciate his accomplishment at a number of levels. As an introduction to the streets and los barrios of Medellin I was fascinated. As a documentary of the lives and sufferings of the resident populace I was moved. As cinema I was greatly impressed with the performance of German Jaramillo who plays Fernando, a man so jaded with life that he has surpassed the fear of death yet has difficulty making his exit for any number of reasons... One last love, a visit to a long ago cantina or church, the sound of a once familiar melody.

His youthful lover Alexis (Anderson Ballestros) by way of contrast kills rather than engaging in senseless argumentation, or to preclude personal affront but most of all to avoid being killed. The pace of Alexis' life can only be slowed by sexuality, sleep or death. The music which soothes him is loud and frenetic. His sometime outward languidity cannot hide a turbulence bred of violence and danger yet he is unable to watch as Fernando mercifully kills a suffering animal.

The killing portrayed here is not for those impressed with the Hollywood blood-bath type featuring good guys vs bad guys where the good guys somehow always prevail by way of superior cunning or fire-power. Here there is no justification. Only futile vengeance and self preservation. Nobody is right. No one wins.

Shroeder keeps the film short and uses a bare skeleton of plot to extend the running time to ninety-eight minutes. It is only slightly more than enough and Shroeder can be forgiven for conforming to acceptable feature time length considering what he has been able to achieve.

The dialogue is superb, cutting away the veneer of myth and civilization, as humanity is reduced to an insane parody of breeding, feeding, dying and removal of bodies. In one memorable scene Fernando rails sardonic at the determination of residents to dump corpses down a mountain side in spite of a sign clearly prohibiting the practice. Vultures circle above awaiting the opportunity to feast on the distorted carrion.

The soundtrack ranges from pasodobles to Maria Callas and is beautifully integrated into the moods of Fernando and his youthful lovers.

Anyone interested in how much can be communicated through the art of cinema should see this film and see it more than once -- in a cinema.