Movies Reviews

October (Octubre) – Movie Review

By Ron Wilkinson May 27, 2011, 0:55 GMT

Clemente, a moneylender of few words, is a new hope for Sofía, his single neighbor, devoted to the October worship of Our Lord of the Miracles... ...more

Too rapid a departure from convention will leave audiences adrift in this dark comedy.

Although steeped in clinging, crawling dread followed up by a remarkable awakening, the debut feature film of the Peruvian Vega brothers falls short of a full house. The film starts on the right foot, with deeply shadowed interior settings in the shabbiest, most stripped down hovel imaginable.

The hovel is in the barrios of Lima, a place everybody wants to be from and in which nobody plans to stay. But they are all there anyway, bubbling, boiling and colliding in a cauldron of seething poverty and barely missed chances.

One of the survivors is Clemente (Bruno Odar). Clemente is the son of the pawnbroker and he is sometimes called exactly that: “The Pawnbroker’s Son.” He does not deserve a name. Even a murderer has a name, but Clemente is so severely cut off from the people around him that he has lost the right to an identity. He has lost his name. He is the barrio moneylender.

Starting in Clemente’s stripped bare hovel, his office, with a table, chair and stool (the stool is for the borrower, the chair for Clemente) the film stays dark. We are brought into that dark, rotting, decrepit, corpuscular flat under the finest of film noire circumstances. Clemente knows that somebody has been into his apartment while he has been out.

Expecting the worst, Clemente leads us through the front room of the apartment and into the oven. Before he even checks for killers in the shadows, he checks his pathetic cigar box, hidden so pathetically poorly, in the oven. The money is there.

Clement sighs with relief long before he is sure he won’t be attacked with a knife in his back in the next instant. He hears a noise, grabs a butcher knife and heads into the next room. There, hidden from view is….a baby.

His baby. As the parades of October choke the narrow streets of the Lima barrios people pray en masse for the miracles they need. The miracle of freedom from disease, the miracle of an education, the miracle of an escape.

The miracle to save the life of one they love. Unbeknownst to Clemente, he is caught up and named in their prayers. Their tiny alters burn with candles on their shaky tables. Each candle might mean no food for that day.

Searching for someone to care for the child, Clemente finds Sofia (Gabriela Velasquez). Sofia sees how Clemente is crippled with a detached caring for his newfound child. She also sees how his dreadful lack of connection makes it even harder for his to fathom the role of the guardian of a child. She moves into his house and she tries to move into his heart.

Although he rejects her violently throughout the film, in the end we know that the die has been cast. Clemente has begun to feel and there is no way he can stop the emotions beginning to trickle into his soul. The film exits as dark and dreadful as it started but there is a vibration of human emotion seeping into the house.

The edges of the walls, their paint peeling and falling like tears, glow with the feeling of the parades of the magical Month of October. Perhaps Clemente, Sofia and their child have all found their miracle for this month.

The Vidal brothers have created something very sophisticated with this film. However, they may have chosen a style of exposition that is too hard for the average viewer to follow. Some American viewers will want to see a story saturated with the original treatment of psycho alienation and usury as in Rod Steger’s staggering performance in “The Pawnbroker.”

Or perhaps the emotional evisceration of the detective Bogart or the gangster Cagney. The presence of the gift is a relief but the audience hardly knows what hit them. There is a theme of counterfeit money running through the film. This counterfeit was extremely prevalent in Peru a few years ago.
People would check change from a bank teller window the same way they would check change from a taxi driver.

This is contrasted with Sofia. Sofia is extremely religious, she trusts to the miracles of the sacred Peruvian “Purple Month” of October and the grace of the Lord of Miracles. Clemente drops his guard and commits a lethal mistake in his barrio.

He takes a counterfeit bill. In the end, the dropping of his guard is the sign of the Lord of Miracles paying a visit. Just as someone broke into his house to leave the child, the Lord has broken into his life.

In spite of this fascinating foundation, the execution is not up to the demands of the complex storyline (at least it is complex to North Americans). In any event, a very indie film and something to whet the appetite for more of the Vega brothers.

Visit the movie database for more information.

Directed and Written by: Daniel and Diego Vega Vidal
Starring: Bruno Odar, Gabriela Velásquez and Carlos Gassols
Release Date: May 6, 2011
MPAA: Not Rated
Runtime: 83 minutes
Country:Peru
Language: Spanish
Color: Color