Review of Carandiru (2003) by Obert R — 13 May 2008

One of the most-sought movies I have been eyeing in the video stores. This is another disturbing and uncanny flick, as I can term it, from an official selection of 2003 Cannes International Film Festival after Steven Spielberg's adaptation of liquidation of Jews in Schindler's List.

The first few parts of the movie is quite a stiff and nothing more extraordinary to most of the movie buffs. It's some sort of a Carlo Caparas-like elucidation of all main characters' individual tragic narration of how-we-got-into-prison stories.

Very Pinoy style on how to bore viewers. Worse is, it is dreadfully a predictable plot of blunt social relevance with which you're always perfectly right on your estimation with what's next in the succeeding frames.

The only fine craft I admire in this movie is that the actors are meticulously chosen to give justice to the characters they have portrayed. Well-rehearsed lines and superb acting prowess all combined to one.

One of my most favorite characters among all the inmates is Highness, who depicts an annoyingly dogmatic idea of his chauvinistic side of how to pick and treat women and I love his transformation to an ambivalent lover whose heart is breaking into two - a Don Juan de Marco inside the prison cell? The story itself is a common sight which we have seen in a lot of movies about prisoners, but the denouement is what this film detaches itself from all the rest.

Short but sweet, everything ends in a bloody death of more than a thousand inmates which is a memory of the massive carnage spearheaded by Amon Goeth. Recommended to watch when cable TV has run out of movies for the day.