Monday, September 06, 2004
i went to see maria full of grace this weekend. maria is a colombian 'mule'--a term with which i was unfamiliar, meaning a person who smuggles drugs into the U.S. by swallowing them. that's right--dozens of pellets of heroin, encased apparently in latex, swallowed into an empty stomach, digested, and popped out the other end upon arrival in the country of destination. i found 'maria full of grace' to be a much more powerful statement about the war on drugs than something like 'traffic'. in the broadest sense, it was for me an experience similar to seeing requiem for a dream--i was glad to have seen it once, but don't really care to see it several times. the best aspect of the movie, i thought, was the totally unsentimental way in which the action was presented. this does not mean that the movie has no emotional effect on the viewer--quite the opposite. in fact, it seems more powerful because of its objectivity, allowing the story to speak and act for itself without the interjection of cued emotion. a label such as 'scientific realism' might be appropriate for such a style, for it reminded me of emile zola's somewhat detached method of telling a story. anyway, it is well worth checking out.
