La Zona is a movie that kicks the middle class right in their butts. It is a movie that bluntly tells them what they actually are, as against, what they think they are - Rodrigo Pla, through this attempt, probes the very fundamental idea of "civility", often extolled by the bourgeoisie as one of their defining (sometimes distinct) quality.
Written by Laura Santullo and released in 2007, the movie talks about the degrading and twisted values in an industrialized Mexican society that is also marked by acute economic inequality. In her 'intelligent' script Laura underlines the fragility of social notions and values in times of stress.
A fear struck group of people - who are considered progressive, civil and developed as per the accepted societal standards and who also live inside the excluded gates of a suburban colony surrounded by shanties - suddenly resort to the meanest and most butcherly of acts when threatened. The movie gradually rides the viewer into a mood of alarm, where even a grotesque act of covering up dead bodies of two teenagers in municipal garbage tends to be seen as normal and chasing a 16 year old boy to his death is passed off as an act of self defense.
In a town, which fully characterizes the have/have-not divide in the post-modern society symbolized through its excluded gates, irenic living of its residents take precedence over morals and values.
This story can find resonance in every country and in India that resonance is alarmingly loud. How many times have we read about residents of housing colonies beating up a robber to death or parading a woman naked because her son snuggled up to an upper caste girl?? La Zona is about all that - a simple and straight story line that can make you feel extremely uncomfortable for what you actually are and to a great extend break the farce called civility that the country's middle class often harp about. This was Laura Santullo's first attempt as a writer and she gets my two thumbs up.
I give this a movie five star - must watch!
Written by Laura Santullo and released in 2007, the movie talks about the degrading and twisted values in an industrialized Mexican society that is also marked by acute economic inequality. In her 'intelligent' script Laura underlines the fragility of social notions and values in times of stress.
A fear struck group of people - who are considered progressive, civil and developed as per the accepted societal standards and who also live inside the excluded gates of a suburban colony surrounded by shanties - suddenly resort to the meanest and most butcherly of acts when threatened. The movie gradually rides the viewer into a mood of alarm, where even a grotesque act of covering up dead bodies of two teenagers in municipal garbage tends to be seen as normal and chasing a 16 year old boy to his death is passed off as an act of self defense.
In a town, which fully characterizes the have/have-not divide in the post-modern society symbolized through its excluded gates, irenic living of its residents take precedence over morals and values.
This story can find resonance in every country and in India that resonance is alarmingly loud. How many times have we read about residents of housing colonies beating up a robber to death or parading a woman naked because her son snuggled up to an upper caste girl?? La Zona is about all that - a simple and straight story line that can make you feel extremely uncomfortable for what you actually are and to a great extend break the farce called civility that the country's middle class often harp about. This was Laura Santullo's first attempt as a writer and she gets my two thumbs up.
I give this a movie five star - must watch!