Mambo Cool

Chris Gude’s film is labeled as an “experimental documentary,” but while Mambo Cool does feature non-professional actors and real locations, most of it is obviously scripted and staged, with cinematography so arty and pretentious that it only increases the feeling of pervasive artificiality. Gude, who trained as an anthropologist and worked for a time in Medellín, Colombia, trains his camera on that city’s dark underbelly, where a parade of impoverished denizens trade drugs and sad stories. Also prominent are rats scurrying along alleyways—mirrors of the hapless humans who share the streets (a shot of a rat in a cage is clearly intended to suggest that the people are also trapped), as well as prolonged close-ups of cocaine being cut and mixed, and related paraphernalia being carefully arranged. But there is one form of release the film openly celebrates: the mambo, into which the characters break with abandon, showing off their individualistic moves and talking about their “salsa.” Mambo Cool boasts some striking (if also affected) images, as well as an atmospheric score by David Oquendo, but overall the fleeting glimpses it offers of troubled souls trying to survive in an inhospitable world prove to be more depressing than enlightening. Not a necessary purchase. (F. Swietek)